IRC Ulysses Grant sparks Irish-French archaeological collaboration
By Graeme Warren
In May 2024 Professor Graeme Warren and Martin Moucheron (UCD School of Archaeology, UCD Earth Institute) were guests of Dr Marylise Onfray (Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives – INRAP) and colleagues in Brittany for a networking meeting, fieldtrips and workshop. This was the second part of an Ireland/France exchange supported by IRC Ulysses funding.
The Ulysses scheme, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, aims to foster collaboration between Irish and French researchers, and provides support for visits, workshops, training etc – with the ambition of promoting and developing partnerships. It is funded and managed by the IRC here, and funded the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, managed by the French Embassy and Capus France.
Visiting the iconic Mesolithic cemetery of Hoedic, May 2024.
Our project included two senior researchers – one of whom, Prof Gregor Marchand sadly passed away last year – and two early careers researchers: a PhD student here in UCD (Moucheron), and a postdoc in Brittany (Onfray). Our Ulysses programme aimed to compare approaches to early prehistoric shell ‘middens’ in Ireland and Brittany. These are a distinctive feature of the Mesolithic period in both regions – but the approaches used to understand these sites are different in the two countries. Ulysses funding enabled us to host our Breton colleagues for fieldtrips, site visits and seminars here in 2023, and to undertake our trip to Brittany in 2024.
Lunch below the Hoedic cemetery, May 2024.
This has allowed us to provide training opportunities for Moucheron, samples for Onfray, and to develop collaborations and publications, including – hopefully – excavations in Brittany in the near future. Alongside this, we met many other colleagues and visiting researchers in both France and Ireland, expanding research networks. In Brittany we were able to visit iconic archaeological sites – and were blessed by wonderful weather! Martin and I are very grateful to Marylise and her colleagues for their hospitality.
Ulysses funding is small-scale, but very useful. In my experience, the IRC were incredibly supportive of the development of the application. For any Earth Institute members with colleagues – or potential colleagues – in France, I would highly recommend it.
We are very grateful to all of the Ulysses partners for their support.
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