'For want of a horse, the rider was lost’: an introduction to Ireland's Late Iron Age equitation
Channel: The Ulster Archaeological Society
Date: 2022-02-01

The horse, in any culture, represents transport, status for the human, but also requires a suitable landscape to raise it and feed it, it the knowledge of welfare and training as well as technological know-how to make the equipment used to ride or drive it. In the absence of faunal remains, the examination of equestrian equipment can provide some insight into the society making and using them. That information can inform of not only the horse/human relationship, but potentially, the lives of the riders themselves.

Dr Rena Maguire is a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen's University Belfast. Her doctoral research investigated the metalwork of iron age horses in Ireland and their social context, she has since published this in her monograph 'Irish Late Iron Age Equestrian Equipment in its Insular and Continental Context' (available from Archaeopress).