What is recorded here

Creewood holds a forgotten hut on the south slope of Slieve Breagh, where oval earth banks once marked a small domestic life among barrows and raths. People shaped that ridge during the centuries when Brega named the wider region, building shelters that resisted time until ploughs and forgetting removed them. The hill still preserves neighbouring monuments, but the hut itself has vanished, leaving only a plan and a question about the hands that first lived there.

Slieve Breagh is an ENE-WSW ridge (L of summit c. 500m) that is part of an NE-SW line of hills which extends from Rathkenny, Co. Meath almost to Dunleer, Co. Louth (L c. 15km). There are a number of summit ridges with high cols between them. Breagh is derived from Brega (the heights) which is also the name of the Meath territory. The E end of this summit and much of its S face in Creewood townland is now reclaimed pasture but the remainder in Rathbranchurch is unchanged from the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map and preserves a collection of earthwork monuments consisting mostly of barrows and a few raths as well as some hut-sites that were recorded in the 1950s (de Paor and Ó h-Eochaidhe 1956). There was some excavation (E000038) in the Creewood part of the complex in 1959-1961, but little is known about the results (Herity and Eogan 1977, 49). This feature was isolated in the uncultivated land on the S-facing slope of the ridge. It is described (ibid. 100, No. 27) as one of a group of oval features (dims 5.7m x 3.7m to 7.3m x 6.2m) defined by low earthen banks frequently with an entrance gap, but this one may have been excavated as there was no visible evidence of it in 1984 (SMR file). See the attached plan of the monuments from de Paor and Ó h-Eochaidhe (1956, fig. 2) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Meath' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 10 July 2007 Amended: 5 August 2022

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