There is one particular object that I feel is very significant and it’s very memorable. Its whole recovery was a very memorable moment for me.

There’s a particular antler comb and it’s a bird headed comb. We have a pair of birds heads facing each other. It’s a very simple, elegant object that would fit in the palm of your hand or in the pocket or in a little purse on a belt. It’s an extremely personal item. The thing about it that stood out to me is that not only was it so charming but it is also an unusual type of comb. It’s a distinctly Irish form of comb. We know that they date between AD 650 and AD 750 and there is only 7 or 8 of them known from the entire Island.

The other thing as well is where the comb was found. It was found within a hearth within a house. Early Irish records tell us that people did deposit things in particular places within their houses. Either they’d put something that was important to them inside their house perhaps as what’s known as a foundation deposit, to mark the construction of the house. Or they’d also put in items at the end of the lifetime of a house, so they could put things in as a closing deposit.

In Drumclay quite a lot of our smaller finer items were found in houses and in association with fireplaces. I think it’s unlikely that they are all lost or stray objects so they take on a different meaning. It’s not necessarily something that somebody just dropped, it could’ve been put there intentionally.

But it’s gone on this journey from being a made object to being something that was owned, possibly something that was being passed down the generations until it was finally, I believe intentionally left in the fireplace in this house, probably at the end of the life of a particular house. That to me, all of that in one little object, I think is just fascinating.