Death in Irish prehistory

by Gabriel Cooney

This is a book about life and death over 8,500 years in Ireland. It explores the richness of the mortuary record that we have for Irish prehistory (8000 BC to AD 500) as a highlight of the archaeological record for that long period of time. Because we are dealing with how people coped with death, this rich and diverse record of mortuary practice is also relevant to understanding how we deal with death today, which is just as central a social issue as it always was.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, History, Irish Literature

554 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 12, 2023

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gabriel Cooney writes, “Above all, we have to recognize and come to terms with, as Rachel Clarke put it, ‘the ubiquitous business of dying’. Sarah Tarlow and Liv Nilsson Stutz remarked that archaeologists have the privilege of coming face to face with dead people from the past, providing possibilities of rewriting those people back into history and reminding us of our shared humanity. Hopefully this book conveys some sense of that shared humanity, in life and death.”

I’m not an archaeologist and I found some parts of this book to be dense. However, I thought Cooney brought that value for humanity through in each section. Not only was the content interesting, but I was moved by the sensitivity with which Cooney wrote. Una Mannion’s poem, “Crouched Burial”, was a perfect summation to round out the book.