PROF BARRY RAFTERY:BARRY RAFTERY, who has died aged 66, had a major impact on archaeology in Ireland and Europe over a long and distinguished career. He retired in 2007 as professor of Celtic archaeology in UCD and was the recognised authority on Iron Age Ireland. He was an inspiring teacher and communicator, encouraging others in their research and careers.
His father, Joseph, was keeper of Irish antiquities and subsequently director of the National Museum of Ireland. In 1953, aged 9, he spent the first of two summers working with his father at Lough Gara in Co Sligo. After that there was “not the slightest possibility that I could pursue any career path other than archaeology”.
Educated at Belvedere College, Dublin, he ran with Clonliffe Harriers, until hip problems developed. In University College Dublin he graduated with a BA in archaeology and geography in 1965, followed by an MA in 1967. In UCD he met his future wife and soulmate, Nuala Sproule. In 1970 he was appointed to a lecturership in the Department of Archaeology.
His early postgraduate work was on hillforts, which led him on to the excavation of the important hillfort site of Rathgall, Co Wicklow. His doctoral (1977) research on the Irish Iron Age resulted in two major books: A Catalogue of Irish Iron Age Antiquities (1983) and La Tène in Ireland: Problems of Origin, Development and Chronology (1984).
He approached early societies in Ireland from a European perspective. This became the foundation for his wider contribution to the understanding of later prehistoric societies in Europe and the study of the Celts. He played a major role in the organisation of the international Celtic exhibition in Venice in 1991 and was an editor of the resulting large volume on the Celts. Raftery wrote his own landmark book entitled Pagan Celtic Ireland in 1994.
From the mid-1980s Raftery was involved in a programme of innovative research on wooden trackways and associated features in Irish raised bogs. This began with the excavation of a very large second century BC trackway at Corlea, Co Longford, and expanded to an extensive programme of survey, excavation and student training, and the establishment of the Irish Archaeological Wetland Unit (1988). The excavation results were published in 1996 as Trackway Excavations in the Mountdillon Bogs, Co Longford, 1985-91.
At his funeral in Glenfarne, Co Leitrim, Jude Flynn, president of the Longford Historical Society, paid tribute to the major contribution he had made to understanding Longford’s past.
From 1981 to 1983 he held an Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship at the Phillips-Universität, Marburg. He was O’Donnell Fellow in Celtic Studies at Oxford University for 1988 to 1989, was elected to membership of the Royal Irish Academy and the German Archaeological Institute in 1988 and as a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1995. He played a very active role in the Royal Irish Academy, serving as senior vice-president, as chair of the National Committee for Archaeology and the committee for the publication of the Dublin excavations.
From 1996 to 1999 he was a member of the executive board of the European Association of Archaeologists and he served as a director of the Discovery Programme from 2000 to 2005.
He was visiting professor of European prehistory in Ludwig-Maximilian Universität, Munich in 1988 and 1990.
He was appointed to the chair of Celtic Archaeology in UCD in 1996. As head of the Department of Archaeology in UCD (1996-2001) he led a major programme of change and development in the department. This was reflected in teaching programmes, the appointment of new staff and new areas of research. There was an expansion in the number of students, especially at PhD level, making the department, now the School of Archaeology, the leading centre for postgraduate archaeological research in Ireland.
He will be remembered for his good humour, engaging and unassuming manner and wide interests. He had a store of sayings and phrases that enlivened any conversation. One of these, “relics of old decency”, was chosen as the title of the festschrift published in his honour earlier this year. He loved the places where he lived; Skerries, Ranelagh and Glenfarne and he made and kept friends where ever he went.
Speaking at his funeral Mass in the Church of Mary Immaculate, Rathmines his lifelong friend Billy Quinn quoted WB Yeats to encapsulate the importance of Raftery’s friendship: “And say my glory was that I had such friends.”
He was very proud of his father, and his achievements and career in the National Museum. He took loving care of his mother Lotte in her later years. He bore his own illness with courage and fortitude. The loves of his life were Nuala, their daughters Sara and Tilly, his goddaughter Triona and their families. He enjoyed his role as paterfamilias, doting over his granddaughters, Emily, Sophie, Charlotte and Robin.
Barry Raftery: born August 16th, 1944; died August 22nd, 2010.