As part of this year’s Bealtaine Festival, celebrating the arts and creativity as we age, the Museum will be hosting drop-in events with experimental archaeologists who created handling objects for the Museum’s collection. These will take place each Friday morning throughout the month of May.

For this week’s workshop, meet with archaeologist and leather specialist John Nicholl. During this workshop, John will show you some replica leather objects from Early Medieval and Viking Dublin. He will explain how people sourced and treated leather to make objects, and demonstrate the type of tools used by people in the past to make and decorate leather objects. There are many leather finds on display in the Museum’s Viking Ireland exhibition, so do make sure you check these out afterwards.

John has analysed and reported on a wide variety of archaeological leather assemblages from excavation sites in Ireland. The assemblages examined varied in date from the Early Medieval period through to the 19th century and included a wide range of everyday objects from shoes to bags and articles of dress.

No booking required. This event will take place in the Learning Resource Room, first floor. This event is not wheelchair accessible.