With the castle as its enduring landmark, Carrickfergus is often regarded as one of the most historically significant towns in Northern Ireland.
It has been the site of numerous archaeological digs in the past, with the latest excavation at Shaftesbury Park aiming to unearth the story behind a fort marked on an 1830s map of the area.
The project is part of the Community Archaeology Programme NI (CAPNI) by the Centre for Community Archaeology at Queen’s University Belfast, a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported scheme that invites the public to participate in archaeological fieldwork.
It has been the site of numerous archaeological digs in the past, with the latest excavation at Shaftesbury Park aiming to unearth the story behind a fort marked on an 1830s map of the area.
The project is part of the Community Archaeology Programme NI (CAPNI) by the Centre for Community Archaeology at Queen’s University Belfast, a National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported scheme that invites the public to participate in archaeological fieldwork.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Our two trenches that we're excavating this week and next week, one of them is directly laid over
00:06 what was called the anomaly and actually the layout of the fort and that's the one to our left.
00:11 So it's being excavated both to excavate and investigate the fort and also the anomaly.
00:20 The one behind me here is further along again, not over directly over an anomaly but again
00:26 to see if we can get evidence of this fort from the 19th century map. So this is day one of the
00:33 excavation. We're starting to get artifacts which makes us very hopeful that the deeper we dig down
00:38 the further we go back in time and that we'll find earlier stuff but we'll know better in a
00:42 few days time but all very hopeful so far and hopefully the weather will stay with us.