Irish National Heritage Park adds a brand-new site to their grounds

One of Ireland’s most iconic open-air museums has added a brand-new site…

The Irish National Heritage Park in Ferrycarrig, Co. Wexford has added a new site. The replica copper mine has been carefully constructed over the past several months by Heritage Park staff as part of a revamp of the park’s Bronze Age exhibit.

For the first time, park visitors can enter a reconstructed copper mine to get a feel for how Ireland’s ancient inhabitants mined metal in the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods four thousand years ago.

“Ireland had significant copper and gold resources during prehistory, making it arguably, one of the most important metal producing areas in early prehistoric Europe. Copper ore was used to make tools of copper, and later mixed with tin to make bronze tools. Common bronze tools include axeheads, spearheads, knives, daggers, swords and rivets.” – -National Museum of Ireland

Early evidence of copper mining in Ireland has been found at Ross Island, Co. Kerry and Mount Gabriel, Co. Cork.

The ores were mined using a method called fire setting which involved setting a fire near the rock face and pouring cold water over the heated surface which caused the rock to crack. The copper ores were then dug out from the rock face using stone tools.

Around 2000 BC, metalworkers began to add tin to copper to create bronze, kicking off the famous Bronze Age period. The tin used during Ireland’s Middle and Late Bronze Age was likely imported from Cornwall in England.

The new exhibit is one of seventeen sites in the park which show the progression of Irish society from the Mesolithic period to the arrival of the Normans in the twelfth century. The Irish National Heritage Park, which originally opened in 1987, is known for its living history approach with its authentically crafted buildings and costumed guides.

Its Bronze Age exhibit also includes a reconstructed cist grave, stone circle and fulacht fiadh as well as the ‘Witness Tree’, an ancient Scots Pine tree salvaged from a bog by Michael Carroll in 1986. The Carroll family donated the tree to the park in 2018.

The park’s latest site was unveiled on the 14^th of March to kick off St Patrick’s Day weekend. The Heritage Park is also hosting scheduled St Patrick talks over the coming days to celebrate the national holiday.

St Patrick, a Romano-British missionary and Ireland’s primary patron saint, is traditionally celebrated as the man who brought Christianity to Ireland.

While he didn’t do this singlehandedly, it is thought he played an instrumental role in the early Christianisation of Ireland, acting as an active missionary in the early fifth century.