County: Louth Site name: HILL OF RATH
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 00E0178
Author: Carmel Duffy, for Valerie J. Keeley Ltd.
Site type: Fulacht fia
Period/Dating: Bronze Age (2200 BC-801 BC)
ITM: E 705373m, N 778171m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.742521, -6.402594
The site was found during topsoil-stripping prior to the construction of the Northern Motorway by Meath County Council.
The main body of fulacht material measured 7.6m x 10.8m x 0.7m and was a firm, black, silty clay matrix with 70% burnt stone and charcoal. Under this deposit, several features were cut into the subsoil. F1111, a trough, measured 2.3m x 1.6m x 0.6m and was a flat-bottomed oval pit with sloping sides. Some thin, flat, alder timber found on the floor of the trough was probably planking. There were nineteen stake-holes in the floor. F1196 was a more irregular pit beside the trough, measuring 1.3m x 2m x 0.55m. F1113 was a linear feature that measured 1.6m x 0.3m deep and ran 14m south-west from its terminal beside the pits to where it ran off the road-take. All were filled with fulacht material. A few flints were recovered.
The fulacht deposit ran off the take of the road; further development should take account of this.
Five small pits were excavated about 13m north of the fulacht. F504 contained two joining body sherds from a tub-shaped vessel of coarse fabric, probably of Late Bronze Age date.
Umberstown Great, Summerhill, Co. Meath
