Irish_National_Heritage_Park Knowpia

The Irish National Heritage Park is an open-air museum near Wexford which tells the story of human settlement in Ireland from the Mesolithic period up to the Norman Invasion in 1169. It has 16 reconstructed dwellings including a Mesolithic camp, a Neolithic farmstead, a portal dolmen, a cyst grave, stone circle, medieval ringfort, monastic site, crannóg, and a Viking harbour. It opened in 1987 and is open to the public 363 days of the year. It covers 13.7 hectares of parkland, estuary trails, and wetland forest. It is a not for profit organisation and all its receipts from admissions, restaurant, and shop sales go directly back into the running and maintenance of the park.^[1]^[2]^[3]

The park offers guided tours led by costumed guides, as well as audio guides or self guiding options. The guided tour lasts about one and a half hours and ends at the reconstructed Viking harbour. The park also contains a restaurant and a gift shop. The Trials of Tuan are a set of activities for children throughout the park, culminating in panning for gold.^[4]

Facilities edit

The park has a carpark, toilets, and a restaurant.^[5]

Portal Dolmen

Courses and events edit

The park runs a selection of courses throughout the year ranging from blacksmithing and wood carving, to stone masonry and mounted combat, as well as other events throughout the year. One of the goals of the park is to bring traditional skills back into the public imagination and make them accessible to as many people as possible.^[6]

Carrig, digging the lost town edit

The newest addition to the park is an archaeological excavation at the site of the first Norman fortification in Ireland, on the hill of Carrig overlooking the river Slaney. The park partnered with the IAFS (Irish Archaeology Field School) to excavate and research the site providing studying opportunities for international students. The site contains a ringwork, burnt wooden structures, and a later stone castle. A town grew around the castle and existed till the 1300s.^[7]^[8]

Ringfort

References edit

^ "Irish National Heritage Park". frommers.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
^ "Irish National Heritage Park". lonelyplanet.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
^ "IRISH NATIONAL HERITAGE PARK REVIEW". fodors.com. Retrieved 24 March 2014.
^ "Museums of Ireland". Ireland. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
^ "The Irish National Heritage Park". Visit Wexford. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
^ "courses". The Irish National Heritage Park. Retrieved 30 March 2020.
^ Flood, W. H. Grattan (1914). "The Diocesan Manuscripts of Ferns during the Rule of Bishop Sweetman (1745-1786)". Archivium Hibernicum. 3: 113–123. doi:10.2307/25485472. ISSN 0044-8745. JSTOR 25485472.
^ Eogan, George (January 1975). "An Eighteenth-Century Find of Four Late Bronze Age Gold Discs near Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland". Metropolitan Museum Journal. 10: 23–34. doi:10.2307/1512697. ISSN 0077-8958. JSTOR 1512697.