Pit-burial, Rathcot, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Burial Sites

Pit-burial, Rathcot, Co. Wicklow

On a south-facing slope in County Wicklow, overlooking a marshy stream valley, a Bronze Age burial lies completely invisible at ground level.

There is nothing to mark the spot, no mound, no stone, no earthwork. The grave was found around 1870, and the landscape since then has simply closed back over it.

What the pit contained, when it was eventually examined, was a vase urn, possibly placed inverted over the remains, a practice known from other Bronze Age contexts in Ireland where the vessel acts as a kind of protective cover for the cremated bone beneath. Alongside the urn were cremated human remains, clay, and charcoal. Vase urns are a form of pottery associated with the earlier Bronze Age, roughly the second millennium BC, and were commonly used as containers for cremation burials across Ireland and Britain during that period. The urn recovered from Rathcot is catalogued in the National Museum of Ireland as NMI 1932-6163, which suggests it entered the museum's collections some decades after its discovery. The site is referenced in Liam Price's 1934 work and in John Waddell's later survey of Irish Bronze Age burial traditions.

The choice of location is typical of the period. Bronze Age communities in Ireland frequently sited burials on gentle slopes with long views, often near water, and the marshy stream valley below this spot would have been a meaningful feature in the landscape rather than incidental to it. What makes Rathcot quietly arresting is precisely its absence: a burial that held a person's remains and a carefully chosen ceramic vessel, now sitting unmarked somewhere in the Wicklow countryside, known only through a catalogue number and a handful of scholarly references.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Pit-burial, Rathcot, Co. Wicklow. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement