Vinegar Hill illustration by William Sadler (1782-1839)
During our recent episode with Damien Shiels we got to talking about his two track career which is split between battlefield archaeology and historical research focused on the Irish in the American Civil War
Damian discussed his excavation work on Vinegar Hill a 1798 rebellion battlefield site near Enniscorthy in Country Wexford. Wexford had been a hot bed of rebel activity during the failed rising led by the United Irishmen and while the rebels had early successes they soon began to suffer setbacks as English forces massed in Wexford. The Battle of Vinegar Hill resulted in the rebel army being defeated and marked the effective end of the conflict in Wexford.
In our podcast, Damian discusses his work on the battlefield and how his team's four week effort led to new insights and understanding of that fatal day. Vinegar Hill would prove to be a name that stuck in the memory of the defeated Irish and the can be found today in both Charottsville, North Carolina and more notably in Brooklyn, New York, a memory of a long ago defeat of the United Irishmen
Article from Damian's site: The Battlefield Archaeology of Vinegar Hill
