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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Ring-ditch

Killegland, County Meath, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Ring-ditch, Killegland, County Meath, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Killegland
County
Meath
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.50857, -6.40553
SMR number
ME045-076001-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated on a slight rise at the tip of a low SE-NW spur and with the meandering W-E Broad Meadow River c. 150m to the W and N. Archaeological testing (05E1321) by S. Halliday (2007) in advance of a housing development identified numerous archaeological features some of which were investigated under the original licence (excavations.ie 2006:1496), but others, numbered Sites I and III, were resolved (excavations.ie 2006:1499) by J. Kavanagh (Kavanagh and Quine 2007) under a different licence (06E0871). Site I consists of two ring-ditches, and they might survive partially in a green area.
Ring-ditch A is a circular area (int. diam. 18.26m; ext. diam. 22.5m) defined by a U-shaped ditch or fosse (max. Wth 1.52m; D c. 0.5m) that has an uncut causeway (Wth 5.25m) at S. The ditch was cut at SE by the ditch of the second ring-ditch (ME045-076002-), which is centered further SE, but the ditch of ring-ditch A has a primary layer of sterile brown clay with some silt. One sherd of pottery, flint debitage, and a possible hammer stone were recovered from it. This layer was overlain by a charcoal-rich layer only on the N side. The single central pit (diam. 0.67m; D 0.22m) was filled with clay that had minimal charcoal but no bone. Four pits (dims 1.5-1.8m; D 0.25m) filled with charcoal-rich silty clay and traces of oxidized clay were 13-20m distant from the ring-ditches but produced no artefacts. (Kavanagh and Quine 2007)

See the attached plan from Kavanagh and Quine (2007, fig. 5)

Compiled by: Michael Moore

Date of upload: 22 December 2021

References

Halliday, S. 2007 Archaeological Monitoring Report. Proposed Residential Development, Killegland, Ashbourne, Co. Meath. Licence: 05E1321. Unpublished report, Arch-Tech

Kavanagh, J. and Quine, P. 2007 Archaeological Excavation Report, Site I, Killegland, County Meath. Licence: 06E0871. Unpublished report, ICON Archaeology

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Ring-ditch in Meath All County Meath records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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