Ireland through the Ages: A Virtual Tour

In this course we will be going on a whirlwind virtual tour of Ireland, one of Europe’s smallest countries and—in terms of the sheer number of historical sites and archeological remnants still present on the cultural landscape for the armchair visitor to see—one of its most fascinating. Nowhere in all of western Europe do these historical and archeological remnants survive in the concentration that exists in Ireland—hundreds of thousands of them in a country not even two-thirds the size of Wisconsin. This is often explained by pointing to the country’s traditionally rural culture, and more specifically to its dearth of tillable agricultural land. While about 80% of the total land area of Ireland is devoted to agriculture, most of it grazing of livestock, just 6% is tillable, compared with anywhere from a third to half elsewhere in western Europe. That’s meant that ancient temples and tombs, medieval castles and towerhouses, religious settlements and artifacts from the dawn of Christianity, and forts and other defensive dwellings of an age long past were never churned up or plowed under. Rather, they remain where they were constructed, “monuments” of the past—the physical, material, and “readable” record of a long and rich history that has lain largely undisturbed despite the many political, social, and cultural upheavals that have occurred in the interim. Experiencing these amazing monuments in person can be as close to time travel as we will ever get. Until that is again possible, it is my hope that this virtual visit will go some way toward sustaining the curious traveler in each of us.