Bealtaine at Rathcroghan - A Two Lecture Seminar

To highlight Rathcroghan's past associations as a site of assembly or óenach, Rathcroghan Visitor Centre is delighted to host a two lecture seminar on Saturday, May 11th. This seminar will focus on aspects of cultural celebrations that marked the cross-quarter pre-Christian Festival of Bealtaine. Later Christianised as May Day, it remained an important aspect of Irish society, a society that was predominantly agricultural. The variety of practices and rituals welcomed in the summer, a time of food production, with cattle and dairy being of particular importance.

Days Agenda:

11.45am - Welcome and Introduction

12pm - 'Irish Food History, with a particular focus on the foods of Bealtaine by Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire

1pm - ‘Wayside Crosses at Kilmeane and in the Roscommon Landscape, Personal

Places Veneration in early modern Roscommon’ by Albert Siggins

Dr Máirtín Mac Con Iomaire is a senior lecturer in the School of Culinary Arts and Food Technology at Technological University Dublin. He is the co-founder and chair of the biennial Dublin Gastronomy Symposium and a former trustee of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. He is chair of the Masters in Gastronomy and Food Studies in TU Dublin, the first such programme in Ireland. He is co-editor with Eamon Maher of ‘Tickling the Palate’: Gastronomy in Irish Literature and Culture (Peter Lang: 2014), and with Rhona Richman Kenneally on ‘The Food Issue’ of The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies (2018), and in 2021, Máirtín guest edited a special issue of Folk Life on Irish food ways. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, edited books, conference proceedings and encyclopaedias, and is a regular contributor on food history, chefs and restaurants in the media. In 2018, he presented an eight-part television series for TG4 called ‘Blasta’ celebrating Ireland’s food heritage. Along with Michelle Share and Dorothy Cashman, he is co-editor of the new European Journal of Food Drink and Society. He is co-editor on the forthcoming Irish Food History: A Companion (Royal Irish Academy; EUt+ Academic Press, 2024).

Albert Siggins is actively involved with the Roscommon Historical Society and has published a number of articles in their periodical Journal. Before his retirement in 2012 Mr Siggins enjoyed a long career in technical and conservation practices with the National Museum of Ireland in the Irish Antiquities Division and The Folklife Division. Mr Siggins was also involved with the excavations of the Derrynaflan Hoard and Corlea Trackway, providing draughtwork and drawings.