Pastimes: the archaeology of recreation / National Monuments Service Annual Archaeology Conference

Join us at the 9th National Monuments Service Annual Archaeology Conference on Saturday, October 10 (8:30 AM - 5:30 PM), where Áine Ryan will talk about the role of the handball alleys in the Gaelic-Irish landscape. More about the conference theme Pastimes: the archaeology of recreation. Many of the sports and other activities we now consider hobbies have their roots in our past. Often their origins were not just for fun or a way to relax, they were a necessary craft, a means of finding subsistence, a way of honing an essential life skill. Games, then as now, could have an important social and even political aspect. This year’s conference aims to explore some of these activities, from hunting to handball, that represent skill sets and competition. It also asks what people in the past did for fun and looks at how using archaeology to learn from the past can be fun too. The session themes for this year’s conference are: Cultural Games; Games and Game; Playing with the Past; and Leisure and Lifeways. The topics being covered will include textiles and experimental archaeology, archaeogaming, Aonach Tailteann (the Tailtean Games) and childhood in prehistory. Our speakers include falconry expert Hilary White and award-winning archaeologist Dr Jim Leary, whose popular book Footmarks: a journey into our restless past looks at what is now a popular pastime—walking.