Ballon Hill an Archaeological Treasure

On the 6th September 2005 BIG hosted a seminar on this topic presented by Maeve Sikora, Assistant keeper o
f the department of antiquities of the National Museum.

Maeve stressed the importance of Ballon in that it has so many archaeological finds within a small area.
She showed slides indicating these finds and their location on and around the hill.
She also showed slides of the many urns, pots and vases held in the National Museum as well as
some metal artifacts discovered around this time. At their discovery they were held as an important
national treasure with all the attendant publicity. Their importance today is equally valid and it is hoped
that the seminar will pay testament to this and remind us of this heritage
and the importance of preserving it for all time.

There is ongoing development on the hill with no evidence that we can discover of an archaelogical
input prior to and during construction. If anyone has evidence we would be pleased to learn about it.

Information on the hill is available here with reference to further reading

There was a great attendance on the night with about a 100 guests comprising around 20 children
from the school, 30 locals and about 50 heritage minded visitors.

Special thanks to:

Alison Harvey for promoting the idea
Maeve Sikora for giving the talk
Ballykealey Manor Hotel for providing the room and the refreshments
Community and Enterprise Dept of CCC for the projector and computer
Dermot Mulligan, curator of Carlow museum, for press coverage, advertising and technical assistance
Ballon Improvement Group for co-ordination and expenses

Alison Harvey, Dermot Mulligan, Maeve Sikora

with Michael Martin of BIG

and the Heritage Kids.

Following this a competition was held to design their own urns and funded by BIG with
a 10 euro voucher for each entrant.

and here are the urn designers - 19/10/05

having been presented with their vouchers by treasurer Chrissie McGagh

 

Click here to see the results

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