In ancient times, at the end of the last Ice Age, before the arrival of man, this central area contained a far greater expanse of lakeland coupled with many rivers, wooded inlets and some stretches of fenland.

From about 7,000 B.C. the earliest inhabitants of the region began to arrive in small groups of people with a simple Stone Age culture. These were the hunters and fishers of the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age). There is to-day an increasing body of evidence to show that these Mesolithic hunters frequented the Midland lakes. Close to the Shannon in County Offaly where one great lake (Lough ReeDerg) existed, traces have been found of an early settlement probably a hunting camp, dating from circa 6,500 B.C. and now covered by the later growth of the raised bogland. A number of sites belonging to the close of the Mesolithic period, some three thousand years later, have been discovered on the shores of Lough Derravaragh and Lough Kinale. The weapons and tools of these Mesolithic hunters were made of chert, a compact, black-coloured stone used as a substitute for flint.

About 3,000 B.C. further groups of Stone Age people arrived in Ireland bringing with them a knowledge of primitive farming both tillage and pasture. The habitation sites of these Neolithic (New Stone Age) people are difficult to locate but their burial places, called court tombs and portal tombs can be seen in the northern counties of the Midland region. The court tombs were communal burial places and there is a particularly fine example at Cohaw in County Cavan, which, on excavation, yielded the bones of three individuals and portion of a pottery vessel.

A portal tomb is often marked on the Ordnance maps as a "Cromlech", a "Druid's Altar", or indeed as "Leaba Diarmaid and Gráinne". There are some good examples in the Midland region, and the tomb at Dromanone, near Boyle in County Roscommon, with its massive roofstone and two tall portals is a very impressive monument.

The passage graves are regarded by most experts as the finest monuments of the Irish Neolithic, and the tombs at Dowth, Knoth and .Newgrange in the Boyne Valley are known the world over. Another cemetery on the Loughcrew Hills near Oldcastle close to the Westmeath-Cavan border displays the hill-top setting of these cairns with smaller satellite tombs grouped around the large central cairn. Corn (Cairn) Hill, north of Longford town contains at least two cairns, probably passage graves. Few, if any, burial monuments of the Neolithic period are to be found in the southern sector of the Midland region though the cairn on top of Croughan Hill in County Offaly could well turn out, on excavation , to be a passage grave. Clearly the wet and heavy soil of the Midlands did not appeal to the Neolithic farmers who preferred the light soils of the upland regions.

As with the Neolithic, the field monuments of the succeeding Bronze Age are mainly burial places or barrows as they are usually called. They often contain small stone-built graves called cists where the burials, (normally cremations) are contained within pottery-vessels, Urns or Food Vessels. The barrows are frequently grouped in small cemeteries as at Slanemore, about four miles west of Mullingar. Here three small bowl harrows crown the hill-top from which one can see Lough Owel and Frewin Hill where another group of barrows is located. Stone circles and standing-stones are usually associated with the Bronze Age and the latter are often found within ring-barrows. On the Hill of Uisneach five miles east of Ballymore in County Westmeath the famed Catstone, reputed to mark the centre of Ireland, is surrounded by a low circular ring-barrow. Uisneach was one of the great assembly places of pagan Celtic Ireland and is said to have been "christianized" by St. Patrick. Carnfree near Tulsk in County Roscommon, said to be the inauguration site of the Kings of Connaught has a slender standing stone within a ring-barrow. Rathcroghan (Cruachan) not too far away is regarded as the royal seat of the Kings of Connaught associated in particular with Queen Maeve of the heroic legend of the Táin. Among the extensive complex of earthworks at Cruachan are a number of ring barrows. Slanemore has also an early Celtic association in that it is held to have been the scene of the last great battle of the Táin.

In general it is accepted that the Celts, arriving here in early Iron Age times, made use of earlier sacred burial places such as Uisneach and Cruachan. There is, however, a school of thought who would see the Bronze Age people who erected the barrows and other burial mounds as the first Celts. Future excavations may help to solve the problem.

Hillforts, a field monument closely associated with the Celts on the Continent and in Britain, are also found in Ireland, though only about fifty examples are recorded and none are known from the Midland region. Another form of Iron Age monument, the linear earthworks called the Black Pig's Race, or Duncla - can be seen extending from Lough Kinale to Lough Gowna in County Longford blocking this ancient and important routeway. This earthwork can be traced running in a southwesterly direction as far as Slanemore. Another impressive linear earthwork known as the Dun of Drumsna, can be seen near Carrick-on-Shannon in County Roscommon.

Undoubtedly the commonest field monument in Ireland is the ring-fort, or, in Irish, Rath or lios and examples can be found in all the Midland counties but especially in Counties Westmeath and Roscommon. The majority are simple enclosed homesteads but the larger forts, defended by massive banks and deep ditches or fosses, probably had some form of defensive function. It could be said that almost every townland be it in drumlin, upland or undulating grassland, contains or did contain a ring-fort, and certainly any townland with the prefix Rath or Lios (and there are many) received its name from the ring-fort or forts within its boundary. Probably accounting in part for their numerical strength is the fact that they range in date from at least the early Iron Age to Medieval times. Good examples of ring-forts are to be found at sites such as Cruachan and Uisneach and at the latter site the stone foundations of the houses, of circular and square plan, but now grass-covered, can be clearly seen.

On some of the Midland lakes there are small islands close to the shore which conceal the timbers and brushwood of a crannog or artificial island - the lakeside counterpart of the ring-fort. These sites often come to light when a lake is drained and the water level lowered thus exposing the low stoney platforms or mounds with the tops of the timber stakes showing above the water. The two crannogs at Ballinderry near Moate, when excavated, yielded valuable evidence from a number of periods.

With the arrival of Christianity, and particularly the spread of the monastic movement in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., the heavy soils of the Midlands were enclosed and tilled by the monks. Little remains on the ground to-day of some of the great monastic establishments such as Clonard, but at others the ruins of an early church, a High Cross or cross-slab and perhaps traces of the monastic enclosure or vallum - an earthen/stone bank like that of a ring-fort, but enclosing a much larger area, was usually circular in plan and marked the bounds of the monastic precinct.

Many monasteries began as the díseart or retreat of the founder saint and so the "islands" in the boglands around the Shannon or the small islands in Lough Ree were favoured by the holy men of the Early Christian Period. There are early monastic remains on Hare Island, Inchcleraun and Inchbofin - places accessible to-day to those who enjoy the pleasures of boating or cruising on the Shannon. Clonmacnoise, some seven miles south of Athlone on the banks of the Shannon, is probably the most important monastic site not alone in the Midlands, but in the entire country. Founded by St. Ciaran it certainly contains today one of the largest groups of early Christian antiquities rivalled only by Glendalough. Some traces of the great earthen vallum survive and within it are the churches, Round Towers, High Crosses and by far the largest collection of inscribed and decorated grave slabs from any one site. The High Cross, known as the Cross of the Scriptures is one of the finest of the Scripture crosses and the Nun's Church is regarded by many as the high point of the Irish Romanesque.

Other famous monasteries in the Midland region include Durrow (founded by St. Columba) in Offaly where there is a notable High Cross and some cross-slabs, and Gallen, also in Offaly, which has a large group of grave-slabs. There are early church remains at Ardagh in County Longford and at Fore in County Westmeath. At many of the early monastic sites the extant visible remains are those of the later Medieval church ruins, but a fair proportion of the sites contain architectural features and details such as doorways, chancel arches and occasionally windows belonging to the Irish Romanesque. Doorways such as Clonfert on the west of the Shannon, Killeshin in County Laois, and Moinincha in the southern tip of Offaly are among the finest and best preserved in Ireland.

Besides being rich in antiquities of the early Christian period the Midland region can also boast of a number of fine Medieval ecclesiastical remains. At Boyle in the very north of Roscommon the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey (beside the main Sligo road) display not only some structural features belonging to the twelfth century but also some very fine details of the early Gothic or Transitional style. The Canons Regular of St. Augustine like the Cistercians were introduced into Ireland by St. Malachy as part of the twelfth century reform movement. In many instances they took over the earlier Celtic establishments and the remains of Augustinian priories are to be found at sites such as Monaincha, Gallen and Seir Kieran in Offaly and Inchcleraun in Longford. Later Medieval orders -as the Dominicans and Franciscans built their friaries within towns, like Longford, Mullingar and Athlone, where no traces now survive above ground of their establishments. At Roscommon, however, there are substantial remains of the Dominican friary and a very fine fifteenth century wall-tomb depicting gallow-glasse in full military dress. At Fore, in Westmeath, the ruins of the Benedictine Abbey show how, in troubled Medieval times, a monastery was often fortified in the same way as a castle or walled town.

Precariously perched ruins of a castle at Clonmacnoise built by John Gray in the thirteenth century. Photograph, Tom Kennedy

The coming of the Normans in 1169 witnessed the erection and spread of the motte and bailey - the large defensive earthwork associated with their initial campaigns of conquest and settlement. The motte or large earthen mound was surrounded by a deep ditch or fosse and the enclosing bank and the lower bailey area, usually semi-circular in plan, was also defended by a fosse and bank. Only a small portion of the Midlands was effectively controlled by the Normans, particularly Westmeath which has some well preserved mottes as at Castletown-Geoghegan, Killixy and Mount Temple. Reputedly the highest motte in the country is at Granard in County Longford and strangely enough, a very fine motte and bailey is to be found at Clonburren in Roscommon on the west bank of the Shannon.

There are other Medieval earth-works such as moated sites and deserted manorial villages to be found mainly in Westmeath where the Norman attempts at settlement met with initial success. Early Norman castles with massive keeps and towered curtain walls are scarce in the Midlands but Athlone Castle still stands to-day, silent and grim, commanding this all important crossing of the Shannon. Other early castles survive at Roscommon (a royal castle), Ballintober, also in Roscommon, and at Dunamase in County Laois. In later times during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries both the Normans and Irish lords favoured a smaller form of castle known as the tower-house, a single strongly-built tower of rectangular plan with four or five floors. Most are now in a very ruinous condition, but a fine well-preserved example can be seen at Leap in South Offaly.

There are other monuments and sites dating from late Medieval times, but space does not permit of their inclusion in this short article. Suffice to say that the Midland region has an undoubted wealth of ancient sites and monuments and is particularly rich in antiquities of the Early Christian Period. This heritage is a national resource which, if preserved and properly presented can serve not only to illustrate our past as well if not better than any document or history book but can also play a very significant role in attracting visitors and tourists to the area. Unfortunately this heritage, of which any country or region would be proud, is now threatened with destruction as never before mainly because of the bulldozer and deep ploughing technique in modern farm development. While we still the time and power to halt such destruction let us ensure the preservation of this priceless heritage for future generations.

Books for further reading:
Killanin, The Lord, and Duignan, M.V. The Shell Guide To Ireland 2nd edition, revised (1969).
O'Riordain S.P. Antiquities of the Irish Countryside (1968).
Herity, M. and Eogan, G. Ireland in Prehistory (1977).
Harbison P. Guide to the National Monuments of Ireland 2nd edition (1973).
Harbison P. The Archaeology of Ireland (1976).
De Paor, Maire and Liam. Early Christian Ireland (1958).
Mitchell F. The Irish Landscape (1976).
Ryan M. Lough Boora Excavations An Taisce Journal, Vol 2, no. 1 (1978)

Above: recovery fo a dug-out canoe at Lough Derravaragh. Photograph, Leo Daly/Source