Public talk: Dig Tralee 2024

Join Kerry county archaeologist Dr Michael Connolly and museum educator Jemma O'Connell this Heritage Week for an update on Dig Tralee 2024, season 3. Dig Tralee is a major community archaeology project that explores Knockanacuig, a prehistoric monument complex on the outskirts of Tralee, County Kerry. The aim of the project is to explore this ancient monument and uncover the role it might have played in the origins of Tralee. Dig Tralee began in 2022 with a two-week excavation and continued on for several weeks on a larger scale in 2023 and 2024. Knockanacuig was once an enclosure of significant size and height that commanded views of the surrounding area for miles around. The excavations showed that Knockanacuig had been in continuous use since the Stone Age and could well be the site where the town of Tralee began, long before the Normans arrived and established an urban centre. But now, as the modern town encroaches on all sides, the landscape context in which the monument site is being lost bit by bit. Dig Tralee provides a unique opportunity to find out more about the site, to reinstate its prominence in the history of the town, and to connect people today with the town's earliest inhabitants thousands of years ago.

The Dig Tralee Community Archaeology Project is funded through the Heritage Council's County Heritage Grants Scheme, Creative Ireland and Kerry County Council.