What is recorded here

Urns emerged across Ballon Hill in 1853, revealing a buried cemetery beneath what people then called an old rath. The hill may have worn a ringfort or ring-barrow, while ordinary life kept its dead inside pits and cists. Fields and forgetting took the rest, leaving only the shape of loss to be guessed from urns and memory.

Extensive cemetery of pit and cist burials associated with bowl and vase food vessel and cordoned urn pottery, apparently covering much of Ballon Hill. References to largely levelled entrenchments and earthworks and 'the site of old rath', suggest hilltop may have been enclosed, possibly with ringfort or with ring-barrow associated with complex. No visible surface traces. Area has been cleared and improved. (JRSAI 1853, 295; JRSAI 1959, 31-3, with refs; JRSAI 1970, 109). Test trenching carried out within area of constraint in 2005 by Coilin Ó Drisceoil (Ó Drisceoil, 2008, p. 18) failed to reveal anything of archaeological significance. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Carlow' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1993). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 03 February 2009

A Neolithic to Early Bronze Age cemetery; significant for its pit and cist burials with food vessels and cordoned urns, reflecting ritual practices and funerary customs of the period.

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