Iron Age

Iron Age (or Early Iron Age), the techno‐cultural term for the period that follows the Bronze Age and precedes the Early Medieval period. Its beginning, defined by the earliest significant use of iron, is unclear. It was no later than the 3rd century bc, when La Tène material began to arrive, but might have been several centuries earlier, when iron was in use amongst British and continental cultures which were in contact with Ireland. The end of the period is defined, rather arbitrarily, as the beginning of Christianization, which event is given a notional 5th‐century date. While the Irish Iron Age is well represented by metal artefacts (ornaments, harness‐pieces, and weapons), almost all of which indicate high‐status owners, its settlements and mundane artefacts remain undiscovered. It is certain, however, that its ritual elements—great internally ditched enclosures (such as Emain Macha) and ring‐barrows—are indigenous in origin. The types of settlement, hillfort, and pottery characteristic of Iron Age cultures on the Continent are entirely absent from Iron Age Ireland. For these and other reasons the notion of a major population intrusion into Ireland from the Celtic world, or from anywhere else, at the inception of, or during, the Iron Age is unsupportable.

The Irish Iron Age is now believed to have consisted of a number of separate cultural elements. The rich Irish La Tène assemblage, probably indicating cattle‐rearing warrior groups, consists of objects and art styles originally derived from Britain and the Continent. But while such objects are without doubt the best known and most visible part of the cultural assemblage of the Irish Iron Age they have a limited distribution. A geographically distinct, apparently artefact‐impoverished, cereal‐growing population can be demonstrated over much of the country by the wide distribution of rotary querns of a distinctive type. Strong Roman influences can also be seen in certain areas. Curiously, in the southern third of the country (most of Munster and southern Leinster), it has proved virtually impossible to identify or describe an Iron Age at all. The La Tène and Roman assemblages are best explained as the result of the intrusion of limited numbers of warrior adventurers and there can be no doubt that the bulk of the population remained genetically unchanged from the Bronze Age, and continued thus into the Early Medieval period.

Richard Warner