What is recorded here

Creewood holds a late Neolithic hut site on the south face of Slieve Breagh, marked today by a simple circle of concrete posts. Earth banks once shaped an oval room large enough for a family, a fire, and the quiet rhythm of days when Brega still meant the heights rather than a county name. People may have sat at its entrance watching weather move across the ridge, knowing the land could be lost to pasture or forgotten by mapmakers. The posts still draw a line around that chamber, inviting imagination to fill the space where wood, rope, and breath once lived.

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 with another hut site (No. 29) c. 20m to the NE. It is described (de Paor and Ó h-Eochaidhe 1956 100, No. 28) 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. This one seems to have been excavated and may have been one of the two circular hut-sites of late Neolithic date as its site was marked by a circle of concrete posts in 1984 (SMR file). One of the hut-sites had a double ring of posts and an entrance porch at SE, possibly more akin to a timber circle, although it also had a central hearth (Smyth 2014, 88-89). The artefacts included Grooved ware pottery, iron slag and a glass bead as well as flint, chert and quartz artefacts. This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 11/1956). 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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