Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Vol 74, 2017–18 A HISTORY OF DEER MANAGEMENT IN IRELAND WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE GLENARM DEER PARKS TERENCE REEVES-SMYTH
[email protected] The managed exploitation of deer and its role in the history of the Irish landscape from prehistoric times is examined with particular reference to hunting and deer parks. Being the chief surviving physical manifestation of past deer management, deer parks were first introduced by the Normans, though they became a dominant feature in Ireland only during the 17th and 18th centuries, after which their numbers declined with the ascendance of fox hunting. One of the largest and best recorded of these parks, the 3,000- acre Great Deer Park at Glenarm, Co Antrim, is subject here to special attention. INTRODUCTION the size and number of deer parks throughout the Chris Lynn’s excavation of a mound in Deer country. By the 19th century deer parks had largely Park Farms, Co Antrim, in 1984–87 revealed a assumed an ornamental function with new examples long sequence of enclosed Early Christian period being invariably located for aesthetic reasons within settlements, with associated houses and artefacts. sight of country house windows. It was undoubtedly one of most significant The hunting and management of deer played a archaeological excavations to have been carried major, but invariably understated role in the history in Ireland out for a generation (Lynn & McDowell of the Irish landscape. Unfortunately, hunting often 2011). The site’s survival owed much to its fortuitous has emotive connotations in the modern world location within the boundary of the 17th-century and, with some exceptions, the subject tends to be Great Deer Park of Glenarm.