Markus Casey - A Life of (Re)Discovery

Markus Casey posing in front of a float plane in Lough Erne, August 2002. (P164/4/12)

Perhaps no one made an impact on the field of aerial archaeology in Ireland quite like Galway’s own Markus Casey (1957 – 2008). Equally at home in the trenches of an excavation dig, behind the camera, or in the cockpit of a light aircraft soaring over the fields and coasts of Ireland, Casey helped uncover hundreds of lost and forgotten historical sites during his three-decade career. His substantial archive of archaeological research and photographs, which totals 14 archival boxes and includes over 20,000 photographs, now resides in the University of Galway Library Archives.

Casey was born into academia; his father, Timothy, was Professor of German at the then-University College Galway. It was here that Casey would complete his Bachelor of Arts in Archaeology and Classical Civilisation in 1983. By this point, he had already cycled across Germany and then onto Greece, joining the British School of Archaeology. His BA thesis on the study of promontory forts marked the beginning of a passion project that would last the rest of his life.

Copies of Markus Casey’s 1983 BA thesis completed at the then-University College Galway (P164/2/1/1, left) and the first volume (covering Ulster, Leinster, and portions of County Cork) of Casey’s series of reports on coastal promontory forts for the Heritage Council, December 2001 (P164/2/2/2, right).

In the world of archaeology, Casey is most known for his work on the coastal promontory forts of Ireland, dating back to his BA thesis and continuing for the rest of his life. In the last 1990s, Casey would complete his long-awaited MA dissertation at University College Dublin. Casey's thesis uncovered previously unknown and unidentified Irish coastal ring forts and other archaeological sites in the counties of Clare, Galway, Mayo and Sligo. He identified 111 definite examples of promontory forts, only 37 of which were known prior to his survey, plus another potential 57 sites. Displaying his offbeat sense of humour at the beginning of his MA thesis, Casey inserted a small piece of paper stating ‘ERRATUM: This slip has been inserted by mistake.’ Casey combined this new research with his original 1980s work and follow-up research to produce a set of reports on coastal promontory forts between 2001 and 2003 for the Heritage Council.

Site report and accompanying sketch by Casey of the ruins of a promontory fort at Donaghintraine, County Sligo, 8 May 1985. (P164/2/4/1/1)

Aerial view of the western tip of the Iveragh Peninsula looking toward Portmagee and Valentia Island, Kerry, 6 April 2003. The ruins of a promontory fort are barely visible on the headland at bottom, just left of centre. By 2006, Casey’s work was responsible for identifying up to 77 percent of all known promontory forts on the west coast of Ireland. (P164/4/42/2/001)

A site report on the ruins of a promontory fort at Illaunbeg (Illanebeg), Dursey Island, Cork, excerpted from the above report. Descriptions of each fort include a physical location description accompanied by one of Casey’s detailed aerial photographs. The ruins of the fort are readily visible at centre. (P164/2/2/2)

Excavations at Doonagappul promontory fort, Clare Island, Mayo, August 1992. In the days before modern computer printing, Casey pasted his photographs directly onto cardstock pages for his reports. (P164/2/2/6)

Casey’s archaeological work was not merely limited to promontory forts, as he worked extensively as an archaeological consultant on various projects. At home in Galway, Casey spent much of the late 1980s and early 1990s involved with excavations pertaining to developments in the city centre, uncovering city walls and rediscovering passageways and chambers that had been lost for centuries. During the infrastructure boom of the Celtic Tiger era, Casey’s research and survey services were in high demand as roads offices and county councils across the country sought to determine if new alignments of roadways and expanded sewer systems would end up obliterating historical monuments lurking beneath the surface. Casey was also frequently called upon to inspect residential and commercial construction sites.

Excavation in Quay Lane, Galway city centre, c. 1988. As the centre of Galway underwent a heavy wave of development in the late 1980s and 1990s, Casey’s services were frequently drawn upon; it was Casey who uncovered the remains of the South Bastion of Galway’s medieval city walls in 1987. Many of the features uncovered during his surveys and excavations have been lost due to construction and are preserved only through Casey’s photographs. (P164/3/1/4)

Casey’s eye for detail allowed him to identify from the air hundreds of archaeological features that evaded prior detection even in original Ordnance Survey maps, such as these previously-unidentified ringforts near the N5 road in the townland of Ardakillin, County Roscommon (P164/4/94/101).

Casey balanced his archaeological passion with his other passion, aviation, in his day job as owner-operator of Shoreline Aviation, a light aircraft maintenance company based in Knock, Mayo. Markus Casey tragically perished in a 2008 crash behind the wheel of his Beechcraft Skipper 77 at Kilmovee, County Mayo, leaving behind his family and a network of colleagues and admirers who eulogised him in journals such as the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society and Archaeology Ireland. Even today, his renown is such that the Wikipedia page on aerial archaeology has borne a direct link to an entry on Markus Casey since 2017.

Earlier this year, Casey was mentioned by his MA supervisor at Galway, emeritus Professor of Archaeology John Waddell, in Waddell’s 100 Years of University Archaeology in Galway 1924-2024, available to read here.

'Athair na Tuaithe' - The John Canon Hayes Archive

The archives of the University of Galway Library are home to the archives of Muintir na Tíre (‘People of the Country’). Founded as a rural renewal movement in 1937. Its extensive archive contains an abundance of material relating to social and economic conditions in rural Ireland, Irish rural civil society, the involvement of the Catholic clergy in local community organising, and rural civil society/state relationships over a period spanning more than 80 years. Included within the Muintir na Tíre collection are nine boxes containing the personal archives of its founder, John Martin Canon Hayes (1887-1957).

December 1954 issue of The Landmark, the official magazine of Muintir na Tíre, featuring John Canon Hayes on the cover. (P134/6/2) 

Canon Hayes was born 11 November 1887 in a Land League hut in Murroe, County Limerick; his family having been evicted from the estate of Lord Cloncurry in 1872 for non-payment of rent. In the 22 years his family resided in the hut, seven of Canon Hayes’ nine siblings died. From these impoverished rural circumstances, a desire to improve living conditions in rural Ireland would be instilled in the young future clergyman; the Hayes family would finally return to the estate in 1894 after Canon Hayes’ father testified before the evicted tenants’ commission in Dublin. Hayes would attend Crescent College in Limerick before entering the priesthood. After two years of ecclesiastical college in Thurles, he obtained a spot at the famed Irish College in Paris in 1907 and was ordained in 1913.

Certificate, written in Latin, issued by the Archdiocese of Paris stating that Canon Hayes, then a cleric studying at the Irish College in Paris, is permitted to conduct masses and sacraments on behalf of the Diocese of Kilmore, 10 July 1911. (P134/12/1/4/2/1)

It was not long after Father Hayes’ ordainment (even after his designation as canon in April 1954, he remained ‘Father Hayes’ to his loyal acquaintances) that he was posted to Liverpool, where he served for nine years. By this time, he had already acquired a reputation for his oratory skills, support of the temperance movement, and opposition to sectarianism. Upon his return to Ireland in 1924, Hayes immersed himself in the duals causes of rural Irish development and temperance (he was a steadfast member and organiser for the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association of the Sacred Heart). Appointed to County Tipperary in 1927, he would spend the rest of his life based in the county’s parishes, from where he would conceive of the movement that became Muintir na Tíre.

Page from a lecture on Muintir na Tíre, c. 1938, mentioning the recent founding of a Muintir na Tíre guild in Clonmel, 3 guilds in Cork, and the hope of founding a Munster Provincial Council by the end of the year. (P134/12/1/2/10/8)

In his parochial duties, Canon Hayes was already raising funds for church/community projects and dabbling in rural industrial development schemes. Inspired by the rural cooperatives he saw in continental Europe and by the Catholic Action movement, he sought to organise something similar in Ireland. Muintir na Tíre was initially formed out of a 1931 meeting in Dublin as a standalone society before reconstituting itself in 1937 as an association of parish-based community guilds. By the time of his death, over 400 guilds existed across Ireland working on various local development schemes.

Notes written by Canon Hayes for a radio broadcast he delivered on Muintir na Tíre and vocationalism, c. 1937-1945. (P134/12/1/2/10/65)

Canon Hayes maintained a relentless schedule, constantly on the road across Ireland speaking to Muintir na Tíre guilds, temperance associations, Catholic sodalities, and agricultural, vocational, and business groups, and was a frequent orator on Radio Éireann. His position as leader of Muintir na Tíre and never-ending promoting of rural Irish life, in which he sought to condemn capitalism and communism in equal measure as two sides of a materialist coin while attempting to keep rural Irish from fleeing for the cities or overseas, led to him being courted by leaders of every political stripe. The correspondence in the Canon Hayes archive displays the balance he was forced to keep between keeping the ears of the Ireland’s most powerful political figures and attending to both his rural activist and parochial duties. Letters from Éamon de Valera, James Dillon, and Douglas Hyde are intermixed with pleas from parishioners asking for employment references, financial assistance, aid from being evicted, and simple prayers.

A small sample of Canon Hayes’ lecture notes, which take up four entire archival boxes. Canon Hayes wrote notes for his lectures on every type of paper imaginable, from flowing prose on foolscap to point-form topic notes scrawled on the backs of envelopes. (P134/12/1/2/10/)

Document and mementos pertaining to Canon Hayes’ 1934 trip to Argentina, where he ministered to the Irish diaspora in August, September, and October 1934 at the invitation of the Pallottines and attended the 32nd International Eucharistic Congress in Buenos Aires. At centre, a list of the missions and retreats given by Canon Hayes includes a retreat at San Patricio Church, infamous for being the site where five members of the Pallottine order were massacred in 1976 during the Argentine ‘Dirty War’. (P134/12/1/3/1)

Father Hayes addressing a crowd from the back of a coal lorry, May 1948. (P134/15/027)

Leaflet containing the order of services for a retreat given by Father Hayes and Father J.J. Bergin at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Roman Catholic Church, Liverpool, 14-21 September 1947. Having served the Mount Carmel parish between 1915 and 1924 at the beginning of his priesthood, Canon Hayes retained many connections among the Catholic community and Irish diaspora in the region through the rest of his life. The 1950s would also see Canon Hayes travel to the United States, where his many connections resulted in the establishment of Muintir na Tíre support organisations in Boston, New Jersey, New York, and Los Angeles.(P134/12/1/4/3/8)

Canon Hayes’ name lives on in the neighbourhood of Canon Hayes Park and in the Canon Hayes Sports and Recreation Centre, both in Tipperary Town, and in Canon Hayes court, Fethard.