20 Iron Age Ireland: Continuity, Change, and Identity Katharina Becker 1 SHIFTING PARAMETERS The Irish Iron Age presents us with an archaeological record that seems to consist primarily of chronological, regional, and topical gaps, the most startling one being the lack of settlement and other domestic evidence. The difficulties encountered in answering fundamental questions such as where and how people lived have con- tributed to ‘the enigma of the Irish Iron Age’ (Raftery 1994). This archaeological reality stands in stark contrast to the general perception of Ireland’s present-day identity being firmly rooted in a prehistoric Celtic past. Archaeological research now widely rejects the notion of an invasion or even a large-scale influx of Celtic people into the country (e.g. Armit 2007: 132; Champion 1982; Raftery 2006, 1994: 220–8; Waddell 1995). The necessary paradigm change, away from the dead-end of a Celtic identity and the engagement with the extant data called for (Armit 2007: 132–3) however, also needs to include the consideration of the artefact record. This leads us straight back to the question of identity. Although some degree of cultural continuity of the Iron Age with the Bronze Age has been stressed (e.g. Cooney and Grogan 1999: 187–8; Raftery 1991: 29), it is still unclear how we should interpret the La Tène-style material culture of the period and the various problems it raises. For this chapter, the key to understanding and interpreting the artefact record is to abandon the notion that it is a direct reflection of people’s ethnicity, the areas they inhabited, or the items they used in everyday life. The high degree of selectivity and the patterns of association in the artefact record suggest that it is the product of complex filtering processes. As such, it reflects the utilization of material culture for the expression of particular social and regional identities at various levels. 2 DEFINING THE PERIOD One of the central problems when discussing the Irish Iron Age is its definition as a period. Radiocarbon-dated ironworking sites evidence the presence of the technology in the earlier half of the first millennium bc (Becker 2009a, in press; Becker, Ó Néill, and O’Flynn 2008a, 2008b). Some recently obtained radiocarbon