Irish Historic Towns Atlas Seminar 2025: Water, Towns and Topography

*This event is fully booked, any please check this page in the week prior to the seminar for any returned places*

Water is a fundamental aspect of urban foundation and development. This is reflected in the names of many of our towns and cities, from Dublin/Duiblinn (black pool) to Cork/Corcaigh (marshy place) to Belfast/Beal Feirste (mouth or ford of the sandbank).

Riverside and coastal locations provided resources, access and protection for human settlement and continued to influence how towns were shaped over time. Urban populations have enjoyed, exploited and managed their natural water resources in a variety of ways throughout history and that remains part of the fabric of our towns and cities.

Understanding the historical perspective and the role water has played in the evolution of urban landscapes is more important than ever and this is the theme of this year’s Irish Historic Towns Atlas (IHTA) seminar. It is convened in association with Irish Walled Towns Network (IWTN), an initiative of the Heritage Council, with an emphasis on Anglo-Norman walled towns. The published IHTAs (nos 1–31) offer a way of looking at the subject of water in towns in a thematic and comparative way, from the influence of major urban landmarks such as rivers and harbours, to features of water management and infrastructure, to the role water has played in town life through industry, trade, defence and leisure.

Programme

8:45 Registration, Welcome & Introduction

*9:15 Session I Urban perspectives: from source to sea I

‘The rise and fall of Clonmines, an Anglo-Norman estuary town in Co. Wexford’ Edward Pollard, Anthony Corns, Arnaud de Volder, Sandra Henry, Paul Murphy and Robert Shaw (The Discovery Programme)

Eel weirs in Athlone and their names’ Aengus Ó Fionnagáin (University of Limerick)

‘Connecting communities to climate change down the historic laneways of an Irish town’ Philip Crowe (University College Dublin)

'The sea and the emergence of modern Tralee’ Marc Caball (University College Dublin)

COFFEE BREAK

11:00 Session II Urban perspectives: from source to sea II

‘Pons Novus, villa Willelmi Marescalli - it's all in the name’ Linda Doran (University College Dublin)

‘Dungarvan: the role of water in its foundation and development’ John Martin (Independent scholar)

‘Derry and Kilmallock – water, towns and topography’ Andrew Wilson (University of Bradford)

‘The town with no river’ Vincent Delaney (Independent scholar)

LUNCH BREAK 

13:15 Session III Waterscapes and cityscapes 

‘Beyond the riverbanks: archaeological insights into Ireland’s Viking-Age towns’ Rebecca Boyd (IAC Archaeology)

‘Limerick City an island stronghold, a port, a flood risk to a playground’ Sarah McCutcheon (Limerick City and County Council)

‘Something fishy, market regulation in Anglo-Norman Dublin’ Barney Whelan (University College Cork/Trinity College Dublin)

‘John Rocque’s Cork: constructing identity and landscape in a mid-eighteenth-century Irish port city’ Kieran McCarthy (Cork City Council)

COFFEE BREAK

15:00 Session IV Waterscapes and cityscapes II

'Watering the metropolis: conflict and controversy in early eighteenth-century Dublin’ Brendan Twomey (Trinity College Dublin)

‘Water consumption and civilizing processes in Dublin’ Philip J. Ryan (University College Dublin)

‘Floating down into Dublin, 1818’ Colm Murray (Technological University Dublin)

16:15 Session V Belfast plenary

Dedicated to the late Professor Raymond Gillespie, MRIA

‘A watery tale? Mapping medieval Belfast’ Keith Lilley (Queen's University Belfast)

‘Between land and lough: quaysides, docks and the maritime world of Georgian Belfast’ Jonathan Wright (Maynooth University)

image: Plot map of Galway, 1625 (The Board of Trinity College Dublin)

*Session times subject to change

Access requirements

Have you got any access requirements that we can assist you with, so that you can fully engage with our event? Please let us know by contacting our access officer in advance of the event, by email: accessofficer@ria.ie