Barrow — unclassified in Riverstown

Monument surveyed in 2015 and described by McGuinness (2015, 69-70) as following: ‘Large, heavily eroded ring-barrow (Diam. 33.2 N-S x 32.8m E-W) in very low relief, comprising a low roughly circular domed mound (Diam. 20m N-S x 18.7m -EW) surrounded by a shallow, poorly defined ditch and what appear to be the remains of an external bank which is now broad, almost flattened and very difficult to discern. Although neither ASI fieldworker who saw the site in the 1970s refer to a bank—the 17/5/71 account, headed ‘Platform barrow?’, describes the site as ‘A small circular or sub-circular low, smooth sided platform surrounded by a wide shallow fosse’ [SMR file]—an outer bank is nonetheless clearly depicted on the 1838 OS 6” map. Where ditch is deepest and best preserved at SE, it is sunk 0.74m below mound and 0.11m below bank. When the site was visited by the ASI on 17/5/71, it had ‘been ploughed recently and it supports corn now’ [SMR file], indicating that the monument was more pronounced until quite recently. Barrow is situated in undulating pasture that has been under the plough in the recent past, and which slopes down very gently, but noticeably, from WNW-ESE; it lies a short distance N of the Royal Canal, just S of which again passes the main railway from Dublin to Sligo. Immediately to W is a crescent-shaped hollow with high back wall to N and low bank forming mouth on lower S side, which is marked on 1838 OS 6” map; this type of feature, taken to be artificial—in one case a quarry—by ASI fieldworkers on 17/5/71 and 22/7/76 [SMR file], is common in the Westmeath landscape and found near other barrows (WM013-016----; WM020-015----), and appears to be a ‘dead-ice hollow’ where a fragment of ice left by a retreating glacier was embedded in the gravel and silt at the front of glacier, and then melted away (pers. comm. Seamus O’Brien). Monument forms part of a loose grouping of four ring-barrows, lying c. 200m to NW of a second similar, but slightly smaller, one in this townland (WM027-021----), and c. 280m to E of a third in Porterstown (WM027-019----); the fourth ring-barrow, also in Porterstown (WM027-036----) lies across the canal c. 600m to SW. On a gently rounded glacial hillock in Riverstown, on slightly more elevated ground (OD 90-100m) c. 950m to N, ploughing in 1969 uncovered a short rectangular cist containing a crouched skeleton with Early Bronze Age Bowl Food Vessel; radiocarbon assay of the bones yielded a date of 3645±30 BP, falling well within the date range of c. 2200-c. 1800 BC for these vessels (Ó Ríordáin 1972, 234-5; Waddell 1990, 154; Brindley 2007, 67, 74, Table 6). Although the other nearby ring-barrows are visible, overall visibility is poor in this low-lying location’. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by David McGuinness. Date of upload: 10 February 2016