Medieval towns, modern signs, identity inter-spaces: Some reflections in historical archaeology

Abstract

One of the most impressive medieval buildings to survive in the small, walled, medieval market town of Fethard in southern Ireland is a two-storeyed-or three-storeyed, if you include loft space-stone-built house from c.1500. Emblazoning the top of one of its walls for several years in the early 1990s was a hand-made, white-painted, timber sign in two parts, the top part, mounted on a pole, spelling out the word "FETHARD" and the bottom part, hammered into the actual wall, spelling out the word "CASTLE". By the time the photograph in Figure 1 was taken in the first half of 1994 a strong wind had blown down the top part. © 2005 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York.