Heritage in our back gardens

In the 18th-century, artists with a passion for the past were indebted to patrons. A wealthy aristocrat could well provide the financial backing enabling an artist to travel the countryside, making sketches and paintings of antiquities. The Dutch Huguenot Gabriel Beranger (c. 1730-1817) was such an artist, whose patrons included Gen Charles Vallancey and the Right Hon William Conyngham. Beranger's sketches provide in some cases the only record of field monuments which have since disappeared from the landscape through either carelessness or downright destruction.

Others have survived and are now part of a very different world to that known by Beranger. Of those survivors is the dolmen in Ballybrack, Co Dublin, which he painted in 1777. At that time, the monument resided in a natural state. So natural that it was not that easy to sketch; Beranger needed some practical assistance.

"It is so much encumbered with all kinds of prickly brambles, that there was no coming near of supporters to measure them. Even to see them, two of my friends were obliged with their sticks, to keep brambles down, until I copied their forms." Elsewhere Beranger is reported as having described the Scalp in 1799 as "a mountain spilt in two by some earthquake, or other revolution, time out of mind". For him, the enormous rocks "seem ready to tumble down and crush the amazed traveller". Now, exactly two centuries later, the author of a new book on the archaeology of the area, Christiaan Corlett, points out we know that the valley was carved out by the raging waters of the melting ice which raced down it more than 12,000 years ago.

Such interesting asides as Beranger's progress about the country or details of an unsigned oil believed to have been commissioned around 1680 and known as the Kilruddery Hunt, or Petrie's engraved drawing of Bullock Harbour dating from about 1819, are a feature of Corlett's Antiquities of Old Rathdown, yet another exciting and informative addition to the growing collection of quality archaeology books now being published in Ireland. In the case of this particular book, it comes from the same stable which produces the excellent quarterly Archaeology Ireland, one of the best produced and most professional of specialist publications which is as accessible to the general reader as it is to the scholar.

Corlett's picture-driven approach is also that of the old school. This is a gentleman's book with echoes of masters such as Praeger and the supreme exponent of the multi-disciplinary, Frank Mitchell. Corlett not only assesses the merits of individual monuments and artifacts, he also places them within their historical and geographical context. His eye for detail catches fascinating oddments such as the carved stone head on Bullock Castle or a figure carved on a granite boundary marker standing between the churches at Kiltuck and Rathmichael.

Among the array of fascinating church architecture are the Rathdown slabs which he notes are almost pagan in decoration. Previously understood to be pre-Christian, the slabs have since been recognised as influenced by Viking art styles and most likely mark the burial sites of local Viking Christians. Corlett argues that the number of Rathdown slabs found at many churches throughout south-east Dublin and neighbouring parts of Wicklow confirm the extent of Viking settlement within the area and also testify to their influence.

Having set out to attempt an archaeological synthesis of southeast Dublin and north-east Wicklow, Corlett has written a study which is both general and comprehensive. He has also attempted to follow his story through several layers of history and geology. It has always been too easy to overlook the riches of this area, which is also one of the most densely developed residential parts of the country.

Geology and time initially shaped the area. Having outlined the impact of physical geography on the landscape, Corlett then moves through the historical stages - beginning in the Stone age, to the Early Bronze with the first signs of metal workings, including tools and weapons. About this time evidence of various burial practices begin to emerge. With the introduction of metal, fewer megalithic tombs were constructed. Details of early Bronze Age burials are included, and he raises the question of human sacrifice. With the end of the Bronze Age came the increasing use of iron.

"Archaeologists," he writes, "traditionally consider the Bronze Age to end sometime after 600 BC, heralding the beginning of a new period known as the Iron Age, which continued to about AD 400, when Christianity was introduced into Ireland . . . However if the Celts ever arrived in Rathdown they left no obvious evidence for the archaeologist, casting a silent shadow of mystery over the centuries before and after the birth of Christ." The historical continuity spans the early and late Middle Ages up to the modern era. Much of this is plotted through the contrasting mix of church and castle architecture.

Among some of the most dramatic mood shots are photographs of Puck's Castle at Rathmichael, Tully High Cross, which dates from the 12th century, and Kilgobban High Cross with its distinctive broken arm, while the riches of Dalkey Island and Bray Head are well documented. As ever, the relationship between archaeology, art and architecture is evident throughout. Corlett has concentrated on a relatively small but highly complex historical overview, and this book and its story are all the more complete for that.

Antiquities of Old Rathdown by Christiaan Corlett is published by Wordwell at £19.99.