Barrow - ring-barrow

The National Monuments Service's description

Monument surveyed in 2015 and described by McGuinness (2015, 70-1) as following: ‘Heavily eroded ring-barrow (Diam. 26.1m N-S x 29.5m E-W) in very low relief, comprising a low roughly circular domed mound (Diam. 13.9m N-S x 13.5m E-W) surrounded by a shallow, poorly defined ditch, and an external bank that is broad, almost flattened and difficult to discern. Where best preserved, ditch is sunk 0.4m below mound and 0.22m below bank. There is an old beech growing in ditch at SSE; part of the stump of a second with saw marks lies at interface of mound and ditch at NW, the ground has been disturbed here, presumably when the tree collapsed or was felled. Barrow caps or is shaped from a low eminence (kame?) 90m W of a kettle-hole lake, in undulating pasture immediately N of the Royal Canal, just S of which again passes the main railway from Dublin to Sligo. Monument forms part of a loose grouping of four ring-barrows, lying c. 200m to SE of a second similar but slightly larger one in this townland (WM027-021----) and c. 500m from a third example in Porterstown (WM027-019----); a fourth ring-barrow, also in Porterstown (WM027-036----), lies across the canal c. 700m to WSW. On a gently rounded glacial hillock in Riverstown, on slightly higher ground (OD 90-100m) c. 950m to N, ploughing in 1969 uncovered a short rectangular cist containing a crouched skeleton with Early Bronze Age Bowl Food Vessel; radiocarbon assay of the bones yielded a date of 3645±30 BP, falling clearly within the date range of c. 2200-c. 1800 BC for these vessels (Ó Ríordáin 1972, 234-5; Waddell 1990, 154; Brindley 2007, 67, 74, Table 6). Although the other nearby ring-barrows are visible, overall visibility is poor in this low-lying location’.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by David McGuinness.

Date of upload: 10 February 2016

References

Waddell, J. 1990 The Bronze Age burials of Ireland. Galway University Press.

Brindley, A.L. 2007 The Dating of Food Vessels and Urns in Ireland, Bronze Age Studies 7. National University of Ireland, Galway.

Ó Ríordáin, A.B. 1972 Prehistoric burials and pottery. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 102, 234-9.

McGuinness, D. 2015 The prehistoric burial mounds and related monument of County Westmeath. Part III - Monuments in Northern and Eastern Westmeath (Baronies of Delvin and Fore, and Parts of Baronies of Farbill, Fartullagh, Moygoish, and Moyashel & Magheradernon). Unpublished survey funded by Westmeath County Council in association with Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society.