1977-79:0003 - BALLYMURPHY, Antrim

This ringfort was to be destroyed in the construction of an outer ring road near the west outskirts of Belfast. It comprised a low platform elevated c.1m above the surrounding meadow and was approximately 35m in diameter. The entrance causeway across an indistinct, shallow ditch faced east towards the present city. The site lay at an altitude of 400ft. Approximately 200m to the south was another ringfort, recently partly levelled during the construction of a playing field. The main interest of the site lay in the fact that it was apparently the last intact example of approximately 20 such sites in the west Belfast area. The circumstances of the excavation were rendered particularly difficult because of civil disorder in the area and work had to be terminated suddenly after only two weeks. This was sufficient to show that the site was unexceptional though it produced many finds of souterrain ware, several glass beads and fragments of 3 lignite armlets from a much disturbed superficial occupation surface. Scant structural traces were recovered and it is unlikely that prolonged excavation would have yielded more important evidence. There was no surrounding bank and the platform appeared to have been achieved by enclosing a slight knoll with a ditch and piling the upeast on the knoll.