My primary goal was to examine changes over time in mortuary art. With over 1400 years of gravestones and plenty of variation in artistic motifs, Clonmacnois was a good place for me to conduct my fieldwork. Also, I had the opportunity to consult with historical records and with living people for further information.
Funding for this project was possible by the President's Undergraduate Fellowship at the Unviersity of California at Los Angeles, at the time when I was a B.A. student there in the honors program in the Department of Anthropology. Although the archival work and data analyses for this project spanned from 1992 to 1993, the field research and data collection in Clonmacnois was limited to some weeks in 1992.
I made careful records of all of the gravestones (with maps, sketches, photographs, rubbings, and video). I also delved through obscure and poorly kept historical records. Finally, I was pleased to interview countless people formally and informally.
My background in Irish and Celtic folklore and archaeology gave me a context in which to make some more profound interpretations. My training in archaeology allowed me to make a sophisticated analysis of temporal change in stylistic and functional elements of the gravestones (as well as a limited study of spatial variation in comparison with other sites).