Trowel - History
Trowel is an academic journal published by postgraduate students at the School of Archaeology, University College Dublin. It was first published in 1988 (Volume I) and the latest Volume is number XIV, 2013.
After a five-year hiatus in publication, the journal was redesigned and re-launched in 2005 so that Volume X, XI, XII, and XIII were converted from the old black and white only A4 version, to an A5 full colour volume. New sections added included a 'reflections' section, featuring short contributions from prominent practitioners of Irish archaeology and a book reviews section. Trowel XIV, in marking the 25th anniversary of the journal, sought to retain some of these positive developments, while echoing the format of the earlier editions. It thereby returned to the A4 format, with mixed black and white and colour sections.
Trowel is one of only four national academic journals in Ireland focusing on the publication of articles relating to archaeology. Others include the Journal of Irish Archaeology, the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, and Section C of the Proceedings of the Irish Royal Academy.