UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Wednesday, 7 September 2016 at 2.30 pm
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR PHILIP DE SOUZA, School of Classics on 7 September 2016, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Celtic Studies, honoris causa on PROFESSOR SIR BARRINGTON WINDSOR CUNLIFFE
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President, colleagues, graduates, ladies and gentlemen. Barry Cunliffe is without doubt one of the world’s greatest archaeologists, whose outstanding career is fully deserving of the recognition that this honorary doctorate offers because he has informed, instructed and inspired students, colleagues and the wider public for more than half a century.
Barry’s earliest major project focussed on the world famous Roman remains at city of Bath, which had been explored piecemeal by Antiquarians since the 18th century, but not been systematically and studied using the most up-to date and scientific techniques. He was the founding director of the Bath Excavation Committee, formed in 1963 and has been involved in work there ever since.
Archaeologists are sometimes so involved in their ongoing excavations that they are slow to write up and publish their findings. This has never been the case with Barry, who has always understood the importance of letting both the academic community and the wider world His prompt, exemplary first site report on his work at Bath was quickly followed by a popular book, Roman Bath Rediscovered, now in its third edition.
Barry was appointed to the newly established chair of Archaeology at Southampton University in 1966. He directed another major excavation at the Roman palace of Fishbourne and broadened the scope of his archaeological work to encompass the Iron Age and Celtic Britain, with
When I was about to head off to London University to begin studying ancient history in the early 1980s, my parish priest suggested to me that I should be very selective in what I chose to read: “The best thing to do is get hold of your professor’s inaugural lecture and read that.” When I asked him why, he said, “As a rule, most university professors don’t produce anything of real significance once they’ve got themselves a chair, so their inaugural lecture is usually the last worthwhile thing they write.” I’m not so sure that is still the rule, and in any case, Barry Cunliffe is most certainly an exception to it. His inaugural lecture at Southampton was entitled, “The Past Tomorrow”. It was also something of a rallying cry for the creation of local archaeological units and a professional oversight body, to ensure the application of scientific rigour to the growing number of archaeological “rescue” excavations that were taking place across Britain, and other parts of Europe, as the rapid development of motorways and new urban centres threatened to destroy centuries of buried cultural heritage. The implication of that inaugural lecture’s title was that, far from resting on his academic laurels, Barry was only just beginning his significant work.
Barry spent nearly two decades of excavating the Iron Age hill fort at Danebury, in Hampshire, and followed that up with the Danebury Environs Programme. This was an ambitious and innovative study of the physical evidence of human activity in a changing landscape from 7500 BC to AD 50. Nor did he restrict his work to the land of his birth. In 1972 he was appointed the first professor of European Archaeology at Oxford University. Since then, through an impressive series of collaborative archaeological projects and publications Barry has contributed a vast amount to our understanding of the development of Bronze and Iron Age societies across Europe. In particular, he has demonstrated the importance of political, economic and cultural interactions between the Celts of the Atlantic coasts and the peoples of the Ancient Mediterranean, and how maritime connectivity stimulated and facilitated Greek and Roman exploration, trade, settlement and conquest in the Celtic regions.
Retirement has not slowed Barry down. His current interdisciplinary research programme, has already produced three co-edited volumes entitled Celtic from the West. In brief Barry and his collaborators propose the innovative thesis that the origins of Celtic culture are not to be found in the traditional location of central Europe, but rather on the Atlantic seaboard, in Spain, Portugal, France, Western Britain and, of course, here in Ireland. [Mention lecture tomorrow at 2.30]
Barry has always understood that preservation of even the most impressive archaeological remains requires the general public to share the academics’ enthusiasm for them. In addition to his many academic articles, excavation reports and major books, he has written several shorter popular works, such as The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek: the man who discovered Britain, and The Celts: a very short introduction. He worked hard to establish a museum alongside the ancient Roman baths and to publicise Bath’s remarkable heritage through radio, television and newspaper interviews, a pattern of public engagement that he continued with all his other projects.
Here in Ireland Barry has long been an academic advisor to the Discovery Programme, which promotes understanding of Ireland’s past through research projects and related education and outreach initiatives.
Above all it is his personal enthusiasm for discovering and understanding the remains of the human past that make Barry such a remarkable person. I am reminded of an occasion just a few years ago when Barry and I were both guest lecturers on a cultural cruise in the Mediterranean. We were in Morocco, in stifling heat of about 38 degrees centigrade. Our coach party disembarked at the site of a medieval fortress and everyone headed for the nearest patch of shade – except Barry. When I summoned up the energy to enter the fort’s gates, I met Barry hurrying back up a hillside, calling out that the remains at the bottom (too distant to see) were extraordinary and we should not waste any more time in getting down there!
I must now ask the President to confer the degree. I shall do so using a traditional, Latin formula, which essentially says, “Please give my friend this honorary doctorate, because he’s worth it!”
Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas, praesento vobis hunc meum amicum, Sir Barry Cunliffe, quem scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad Gradum Doctoratus in Litteris Celticis; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.