Environment Minister Mark H Durkan today urged local people to get involved in the second phase of excavations at Tullaghoge Fort and be part of unfolding its 5,000 year history. On Monday 8 September the DOE’s Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) is starting an archaeological excavation at Tullaghoge Fort, which will run for three weeks to 26 September.
NIEA and Cookstown District Council are currently working towards the enhancement of visitor facilities at Tullaghoge Fort, an internationally important historic site close to Cookstown, Co Tyrone. This work is the second phase of excavation at the fort prior to the planned redevelopment works to improve visitor access, car parking and facilities.
Calling for local people to get involved, Environment Minister Mark H Durkan said:”Tullaghoge Fort is of significant international importance. It is a key place in our landscape, a place where historic events unfolded and where we can examine the past and how it reflects on our lives today.
“An important goal of the project is to help grow the local economy by improving tourism access and facilities at the monument. Alongside this we are also attempting to uncover new information to better understand Tullaghoge, how this place was used in the past and to add to its rich history which stretches back over 5,000 years. We want the local community to be involved, so we are inviting school children and volunteers to join us on the excavation and be part of this very exciting project.
“My NIEA archaeologists have conducted a number of surveys of the site to identify buried archaeological remains within the fort and in the fields surrounding it. The aim of the September excavation is to test some of these features in an attempt to add to the rich history of this monument.
“The dig will concentrate in trenches outside the Fort. One of which will be at a possible original site of the famous O’Neill inauguration chair. The O’Neill family, and their predecessors from the Uí Néill dynasty, used the chair to inaugurate their kings and leaders for hundreds of years before it was broken up in 1602 by an army under Lord Deputy Mountjoy.”
