What is recorded here

Flat cemetery in Ballinagore is a hidden chamber landscape beneath an ordinary Wicklow field. Bulldozers broke through fence lines in 1994, revealing stone cists and pits that had waited since the mound disappeared from later maps. The dead were not far below, nor proud on a hill; they lay flat inside the living land, answered only when the land was cut open.

Situated on a gentle E-facing slope overlooking the marshy floor of a stream valley. A mound is indicated on the 1838 OS 6-inch map but this appears to be levelled on the 1908 OS 6-inch map and field fences have been built over it. A poorly defined circular enclosure (diam. c. 25m) marked by a slight scarp forming about one quarter of a circle was noted here in 1989 during an inspection by the ASI. In 1994, a rectangular stone-lined cist was uncovered during the bulldozing of field fences and was subsequently excavated by the NMI. Further excavations were carried out by Barra Ó Donnabháin in 1994-95 (Excavation Licence No. 94E0175) and uncovered a number of cists and pits, a portion of a mound and three ring-ditches. (Ó Donnabháin 1996, 90-1) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Wicklow' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 13 September 2013 Revised by: Claire Breen

A Neolithic flat cemetery; possibly dating to the Early to Middle Bronze Age. Its significance lies in its potential to provide insights into burial practices and settlement patterns in a landscape undergoing environmental change.

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