New Aspects and Problems in Irish Prehistory Presidential Address for 1937

Abstract

If our Society has for the current year, chosen a President representing Irish Archaeology, I hope it will not be misunderstood if I interpret it as a compliment to recent progress of work and research in Irish Archaeology rather than as a personal tribute. This is not rhetoric. Most Curators of large Museums are constantly facing the danger of becoming nothing else but glorified stamp-collectors; and, whilst they gradually acquire an ever-increasing first-hand knowledge of the actual material, it is the very material itself, with its continuous additions, which absorbs all too frequently their best energies. Hence, with notable exceptions, the Museum career does not make for fertility in literary output; and it is principally occasions like the present one which almost compel a museum Curator to open, as it were, his drawers of new material and to bring some of their contents to the knowledge of fellow-workers in his own and in allied fields of learning.