2002:1506 - RATH, Meath

Excavation was carried out on a site at Rath, near Ashbourne, Co. Meath, as part of the Bord Gáis Éireann Pipeline to the West project (Section 1A: Ballough to Kinnegad). The site was revealed during monitoring of topsoil-stripping and was recorded as a multi-featured site, with a curvilinear ditch, two hearths and burnt-mound material, extending over an area of 25m (north–south) by 30m.

The excavation took place from 29 April to 16 May 2002. The site was found to comprise four curvilinear intercutting ditches, representing the truncated remains of four large, successive, univallate enclosures, all roughly circular in plan. The enclosure ditches ranged from 17.25m to 38.75m in external diameter and from 0.16m to 1.63m deep. The ditches had been recut in a number of places, and burnt stone material was found in the uppermost fill of two of them.

There were also a number of smaller features and deposits within the enclosures or in the fill of the ditches. These included two hearths, a cremation burial, four pits or scoops with cremated bone deposits, and a number of small spreads of cremated bone from the fills of the ditches.

To the west of the area of the intercutting ditches, there was a linear ditch, c. 40m long, that ran west-north-west/east-south-east along the length of the wayleave.

A small but significant range of finds was recovered from the features on the site. A total of 30 sherds and fragments of coarseware pottery were retrieved from the pits with the cremated bone deposits. Over 190 sherds and fragments of both coarseware and Cordoned Urn pottery were recovered from various levels in the fills of the enclosing ditches and ditch segments, as well as a flint round scraper, a tertiary flint blade and a chert flake. Three sherds of coarseware pottery were also recovered from the burnt stone deposit, as well as a flint waste flake and a fragment of a perforated stone disc.

2 Killiney View, Albert Road Lower, Glenageary, Co. Dublin