Biography:
I began my academic life studying computer science at Trinity College Dublin in 1995 which I rapidly discovered was more than slightly alien to my real passions in life, so it was abandoned in favour of archaeology based courses in the Schools of Classics and (the then) Biblical and Theological studies. I graduated in 2000 and subsequently worked in contract archaeology until 2001 when I began my PhD in the School of Classics, University College Dublin.
My Phd research focussed on the practical applications of Bronze Age weaponry in a combat environment, using the cases of Ireland and the Aegean in the Middle and Late Bronze Age. One of the highlights of this work has to be the time I used some of the replica weapons I had manufactured (and some donated examples) to avidly assault an already dead pig in a quest to investigate the efficacy of said weapons. Much constructive time during my postgraduate research was spent at the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens and at the British School at Athens, where I met a really wide range of characters and talents in what has to be one of the most interesting milieu¿s of international specialists in any field in Europe!
I worked on a number of contract excavations in Ireland and research excavations in Greece from 2001 to the present and rank fieldwork as my greatest passion in archaeology. In 2006 and early 2007 I worked full-time as a research associate on the Keros and the international spirit of the Cycladic Early Bronze Age project under Colin Renfrew at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge. My current position in the School of Archaeology is funded by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences.
I am grateful to be an archaeologist as it allows me to indulge my unnerving interest in bladed weaponry with only minimal fear of incarceration. My other great passion in life is motorcycles which have spared me many a hike in the hunt for out of the way archaeological sites at home and abroad.
