Barrow (Ring Barrow), Curragh, Co. Kildare

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Barrow (Ring Barrow), Curragh, Co. Kildare

On the flat, open expanse of the Curragh in County Kildare, a low circular earthwork sits quietly amid the grassland, its profile subtle enough that a casual observer might not register it as anything other than a natural undulation. It is, in fact, a ring barrow, a type of prehistoric funerary monument consisting of a central burial mound enclosed by one or more circular ditches, known as fosses, and their associated banks. This particular example measures roughly 32 metres across in total, with a central mound of just over three metres in diameter rising within a raised platform of about 20 metres. The restraint of the visible remains belies the layered human activity that lies beneath.

Partial excavation by O'Riordáin, published in 1950, established that the monument was not built in a single episode but developed across two distinct phases. The first phase centred on the burial of a single adult, interred in an extended position with the head pointing to the north-west, beneath a low mound of earth and stone. Around this mound, O'Riordáin identified four fosses, two close to the central mound and two concentric ones at roughly six and eight metres from the centre, suggesting the site may originally have functioned as a multiple ring-barrow. The second phase expanded the monument considerably: the central mound was enlarged, and the surrounding area enclosed by the substantial fosse and bank that remain visible today became the setting for a cemetery of twelve extended inhumations, their heads oriented to the west. The dead included two children, three adults of unspecified sex, two adult females, and four adult males. Among the finds recovered during excavation were six pieces of flint, including two that had been worked, a single polychrome glass bead of white, yellow, and blue, several sherds of medieval pottery, and three further sherds decorated with horizontal lines. None of the objects were directly associated with individual burials, which leaves the question of their precise relationship to the monument open.

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