You are invited to a public lecture in our ‘Layers of Ireland’ series on Thursday May 21st, 2026 at 19.00 pm (Greece time), 17.00 pm (Ireland time), 12.00 pm (EST). Our speaker is Professor Muiris O’Sullivan (Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, University College Dublin), on ‘The hill of Tara, Ireland: Myths, Monuments and Identities’.
Abstract: In his IIHSA lecture, Muiris O’Sullivan will explore some overlapping strands of Tara’s mythology, history and archaeology. Unlike the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Brú na Bóinne, there are no imposing stone monuments on the Hill of Tara. Again, unlike the precarious clifftop locations at Skellig Michael and Dún Aenghusa, the Tara landscape is not especially stunning. What sets Tara apart is its significance as a representation of Irish identity. For more than 5,000 years, this place seems to have encapsulated the soul of Ireland in a unique way. It has been mythologised from before the dawn of history and continues to be infused with myth down to the present day. Only a tiny portion of the hill has been excavated by archaeologists, but the results of these excavations suggest that Tara has a story to tell that is as remarkable as the myths it has inspired.
Biographical notes: Muiris O’Sullivan is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at University College Dublin.
In the 1980s, he participated in the excavations at Knowth in the Boyne Valley and was awarded a PhD for his thesis on megalithic art. He was then invited to examine the unpublished archive from three seasons of archaeological excavations in the 1950s at the Mound of the Hostages on the Hill of Tara. This monument, a Neolithic passage tomb overlain by a Bronze Age cemetery mound, had yielded spectacular results, but had remained unpublished. In due course, he completed this project with a much-cited volume, The Mound of the Hostages, Tara (O’Sullivan 2005) and he subsequently organised the publication of a follow-up volume on the previously unpublished excavations at an adjacent Iron Age enclosure, The Rath of the Synods (Grogan 2008). He then organised an international symposium dealing with Tara, resulting in the multi-author review volume, Tara – From the Past top the Future (O’Sullivan et al (eds) 2013).
Side by side with this research, he ran his own multi-season excavation at Knockroe, county Kilkenny, the outcome of which brought a previously anonymous passage tomb monument to national and international attention, not least for its solar alignments and significant assemblage of decorated stones. More recently, he was the lead archaeological consultant for the updated visitor experience at the Brú na Bóinne UNESCO World Heritage Site, opened in 2019, and he served on the international scientific committee of Paysages de Mégalithes, the successful proposal of the megaliths in the Carnac and surrounding coastal region in Brittany, France, for UNESCO World Heritage Site listing.
In addition to an extensive list of book chapters, papers in academic journals and contributions to international conference proceedings, he has written or co-written more than a hundred articles for the journal Archaeology Ireland. He is lead author of the influential report Archaeological Features at Risk (Heritage Council,1998) and Antiquities of Rural Ireland (Wordwell, 2018). He is also co-author of Cottage Industry in Post-Medieval Ireland (Wordwell, 2024) and the foresight study Archaeology 2020 (Heritage Council, 2006).
Professor O’Sullivan is a former head of the UCD School of Archaeology. He was a member of the Heritage Council from 2016 to 2020 and led the preparation of Heritage at the Heart: Heritage Council Strategy 2018-2022.
“Sharing Ancient Irish Heritage with the Irish Diaspora in Greece” is a series of open public lectures on Irish archaeology, taking place throughout May 2026 under the overarching theme “Layers of Ireland” with the support of the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme.
Further information: To attend in person, please register by email: irishinstitutegr@gmail.com
Register for online attendance: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/puqQPb3BR6Gk8DXoVlbdtw