What is recorded here

Barrow on Silliot Hill in County Kildare is a rare surviving ring-barrow, its 33-metre circle still marked by a regular earthen bank and faint internal fosse. It may have belonged to Oenach Carmain, the esteemed Laigin assembly where funeral rites and human gathering became one. Even if the summer house is gone and the ditch has blurred, the hill still holds the shape of that old meeting: people arriving, remembering, and leaving marks the land has not forgotten.

On Silliot Hill (OD 499 feet). A circular area (diam. 33m) is enclosed by a very regular earthen bank (H 1.4m; W 3.7m), with slight traces of an internal fosse. In 1955, it was noted that the bank looked ‘partially remodelled’, the fosse was some 12 feet (c. 3.65m) wide but was ‘effaced in parts’, and there was a ‘ruined summer house’ on the fosse and bank at NW (SMR file). Ó Murchadha (2002, 70) concludes that, ‘ … here, on or around Silliothill in the parish of Carnalway, Oenach Carmain was celebrated.’ Oenach/áenach generally denotes an assembly of people, and originally these celebrations were probably funeral rites, so that óenach became associated with such burial sites as Tailtiu, Brug na Bóinne and Emain Macha. Among the Laigin of south Leinster, the assembly known as Oenach Carmain was a highly esteemed one (ibid. 57). Compiled by: Gearóid Conroy Date of upload: 14 June 2012

Ring-barrow, likely dating to the Early Bronze Age. Its construction and partial remodeling suggest continuity of use or adaptation over time, typical of ceremonial or funerary earthworks in the British Isles.

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