Mound, Curragh, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Ritual/Ceremonial

Mound, Curragh, Co. Kildare

Somewhere on the Curragh, that vast expanse of open limestone grassland in County Kildare long associated with horse racing and military encampment, a small earthen mound sits quietly at the western end of a low, narrow ridge running east to west. It is easy to miss. At its highest point it rises no more than thirty centimetres above the surrounding ground, and its widest measurement at the base is less than nine metres. Yet its subcircular shape and deliberate placement on the ridge suggest it is no accident of geology or agriculture.

The mound was identified from aerial photography taken by the Department of Defence in 1999, which is itself a telling detail: at ground level, something this slight and grass-covered could pass entirely unremarked. Its dimensions are precise enough to have been recorded carefully. The base measures roughly 8.7 metres east to west and 6.9 metres north to south, tapering to a flattened upper surface of about 6.3 by 4 metres. That profile, low and rounded, is consistent with the kind of earthen burial or marker mound found across Ireland from the Bronze Age onward, though nothing in what is currently known confirms a date or function for this one. The Curragh itself has been inhabited and traversed for millennia, and the ridge on which the mound sits would have offered a modest but real vantage across the plain.

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Pete F
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