2007:2069 - Downshill, Wicklow

In 2007 a small excavation was undertaken at Downshill, County Wicklow, supported with a grant from the Royal Irish Academy and Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
The hilltop enclosure at Downshill, WI13-001, is recorded as an incomplete but substantial (220m by 360m) enclosure, its longer axis aligned east-west, shown on the 1909-1910 edition of the Ordnance Survey maps. The enclosure is not shown on the maps around the steeper, eastern side of Downshill. The relationship of the enclosure to field boundaries shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey maps appeared to indicate that it was present but not recorded by the surveyors. As such, it was included in The Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow published in 1997 where it was identified as a subcircular univallate hillfort.

The use of the hilltop for forestry in the mid-twentieth century had obscured and largely removed traces of the enclosure. The clearing of forestry in the early 2000s provided an opportunity to examine the hilltop to see if any traces of the enclosure had survived. Ephemeral traces of the earthwork were identified on the hilltop in the locations indicated on the Ordnance Survey maps. Two locations were selected to try and establish more as to the character and potential date of the earthwork.

In the single season of excavations two trenches measuring a maximum of 4m by 8m and 4m by 10m were opened across surviving portions of the bank. The whole hilltop had been heavily disturbed both by the initial preparation of the hilltop for forestry and the subsequent tree growth. It was possible to establish that there had been a 2-3m wide bank present with an outer ditch. The ditch only survived to a depth of 1m and was 2m wide.
The only finds recovered from the excavations were blank cartridges of early twentieth-century date. Some samples were taken from the lower levels of the various features to try and extract any potential dating material include some possible charcoal samples. However, once the samples were sorted off site there was no suitable material for dating.

The survey and excavations relocated the feature included in The Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow and in the RMP as 13:001. It had an internal bank and external ditch and the surviving dimensions do appear to reflect some of its original character and suggest it was quite shallow and insubstantial. The areas where the enclosure is not recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps were under forestry and heavily landscaped in 2007 and it was not possible to establish whether it had originally enclosed the complete hilltop.

The overall results were relatively inconclusive. The excavations did identify the bank/ditch feature which is represented on the Ordnance Survey map and interpreted in The Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow as a hillfort. However, its slight nature does not neatly lend itself to an interpretation as a substantive hilltop enclosure and more closely resembles some form of upland land enclosure of unknown date. Notably it was slight enough in the early nineteenth century to not be included on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey, suggesting it, at least, may considerably predate the nineteenth century. That still raises a question about the exact status of the site and its characterisation in the archaeological record. But given the extent of disturbance during the afforestation of Downshill, it may not now be possible to satisfactorily establish the date or purpose of the enclosing feature that was constructed on the hill top.

University College Dublin