There are about 500 Iron Age hill forts in Ireland, particularly numerous in the southern half of the island. There are also thousands of ringforts (duns), which are smaller and a different form of settlement, and which are described separately below. A few Irish hill forts of general small univallate type, up to 20 acres, including such sites as Navan, Tara, and Freestone Hill, as well as strongly multivallate sites, clearly indicate links with hill forts in other parts of the British Isles. On the south and southwest coasts, distribution is often dictated by geology and some 200 promontory forts are recorded with defenses across the neck of the peninsula —very much the same pattern as in southwest England and southwest Wales. Some Irish hill forts have cairns (human-formed piles of rocks or stone constructed as monuments, tributes, and astronomical markers or landmarks) inside their boundaries and there are many speculations and theories about them.
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Opposite top: Located about one mile north of Oswestry on the Welsh border in northwest Shropshire, Old Oswestry is an impressive Iron Age hill fort, covering 40 acres (6 hectares), with formidable multiple ramparts. The complexity of its defenses suggests several phases of development. The undefended site was originally occupied by a few round huts, and eventually these were enclosed by a double bank and ditch. These defenses were later rebuilt and a third bank added on all sides except the southeast, where the hill’s steep slope made further strengthening unnecessary. There were two entrances through which Iron Age inhabitants would have accessed the interior, one on the western side and one on the eastern side. The western entrance is the most obvious because of a series of deep rectangular hollows. This feature cannot be found at any of the other hill forts around Shropshire, or indeed anywhere else. They also help to make the hill fort entrance one of the most elaborate in Britain. There have been many suggestions as to what these hollows would originally have been used for, including: stock-pens, storage areas, quarries, water reservoirs or simply additional defensive outworks. There is no evidence that the Roman Legions ever tried to besiege the formidable hill fort, and it is unknown whether the Old Oswestry hill fort was occupied again in Roman time.
Bottom: Traprain Law (also known as Dunpendyrlaw, and locally referred to as Dunpelder) is a hill about 724 feet (221 m) in elevation situated 4 miles (6 km) east of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. It is the site of an oppidum or hill fort, which covered at its maximum extent about 40 acres (16 hectares). Whether it was a seasonal meeting place or a permanent settlement is a matter for speculation. The site was already a place of burial in c. 1500 B. C., and showed evidence of occupation with fortifications after 1000 b. c. The ramparts were rebuilt and re-aligned many times in the following centuries, and Traprain Law a good example of a hill fort in which the designers have taken advantage of the natural defense of a steep precipice on one side and created artificial fortifications on the gentle slope on the other side. Excavations have shown the place was occupied in the late Iron Age from about A. D. 40 through the last quarter of the 2nd century. In the 1st century the Romans recorded the Votadini as a British tribe in the area, and Traprain Law is generally thought to have been one of their major settlements. They emerged as a kingdom under the Brythonic version of their name Gododdin and Traprain Law is thought to have been their capital before it was moved to Din Eidyn (Edinburgh). After the Romans withdrew behind Hadrian’s Wall it was occupied from about a. d. 220 almost uninterruptedly until about 400, when an impressive new rampart was built, then within a few decades the site was abandoned.
Burghead (conjectured reconstruction). The village of Burghead stands on a narrow promontory of land projecting northwest into the outer Moray Firth a little over seven miles northwest of Elgin, Scotland. The tip of the promontory was occupied by a Celtic fortress. The promontory fort at Burghead was large, covering an area of 3 hectares or 7.5 acres. It seems to have been occupied from the the early Iron Age, and settlement here dates back even further, to the Bronze Age. The fortress had two distinct areas. The smaller, higher area occupying the southwest side of the promontory has been variously described as the upper ward or the citadel, which provided the high status accommodation of the king and his retainers, while the larger area on the northeast side of the promontory tends to be called either the lower ward or the annex. The fortress was surrounded by a massive rampart up to 25 feet (8 m) thick and nearly 20 feet (6 m) high, with a similar rampart dividing the citadel from the annex. The landward side of the fortress was additionally defended by three chevron-shaped ramparts on the landward side. A significant harbor (both a commercial and a military base) was built on the northwest side of the promontory, outside the annex but within the protection afforded by the triple outer ramparts. The illustration shows the following features:!: Citadel; 2: Lower ward; 3: Triple defensive wall; 4: Port.
The trivallate hill fort (three almost-concentric enclosures) at Mooghaun North, county of Clare, is thought to be the largest hill fort in Ireland. Built just about 930 B. C., it is situated on a low hillock in a fairly gently undulating landscape of good agricultural land dotted with many small lakes. It has widely spaced ramparts, the outermost of its impending stone walls covers an area of about 27 acres (12 hectares). The ramparts could be as much as 12 m wide in some places and over 2 m in height. All of the walls were made of limestone and appear to be constructed so as to take advantage of the natural contours of the landscape.
The Hill of Tara (meaning Hill of the Kings) is located near the River Boyne about 30 miles north of Dublin. It is an archaeological complex that extends for miles around between Navan and Dunshaughlin in County Meath, Leinster, Ireland. Tara can be described as a collection of both sites and monuments, but it is also a single unified cultural landscape. At the summit of the hill, to the north of the ridge, is an oval Iron Age hill fort, measuring 1,043 feet (318 m) north-south by 866 feet (264 m) east-west and enclosed by an internal ditch and external bank, known as the Royal Enclosure. The most prominent earthworks within are the two linked enclosures, a bivallate ring fort (known as Cormac’s House) and a bivallate ring barrow called the Royal Seat. In the middle of the barrow is a standing stone, which is believed to be the Stone of Destiny, where the Irish kings were crowned. To the north of the ringforts is a small Neolithic passage tomb known the Mound of the Hostages, which was constructed around 3400 B. C. To the north, there is another ringfort with three banks known as the Rath of the Synods. Further north is a long, narrow rectangular structure known as the Banqueting Hall, although it is more likely to have been a ceremonial avenue or cursus monument approaching the site, and three circular earthworks known as the Sloping Trenches and Grainne’s Fort. All three are large ring barrows, which may have been built too close to the steep and subsequently slipped. To the south of the Royal Enclosure lies a ringfort known as Laoghaire’s Fort, where the eponymous king (said to be the last pagan king of Ireland) would have been buried in an upright position. Half a mile south of the Hill of Tara is another hill fort known as Rath Maeve. For many centuries, historians worked to uncover the site’s mysteries, and they have suggested that the most familiar role played by the Hill of Tara in Irish history is as the seat of the kings of Ireland until the 6th century. This role extended until the 12th century, albeit without its earlier splendor. Regardless, the significance of the Hill of Tara predates Celtic times. The ceremonial complex dates back to the Neolithic period around about 4000 B. C., and was used in prehistory as a burial ground, a sanctuary and as the site where the king was publicly proclaimed. The king of Tara was the most important sacred king in prehistoric Ireland and was probably regarded by society as “the king of the world.” The map shows the following features. 1: Royal Enclosure; 2: Cormac’s House; 3: Royal Seat; 4: Mound of the Hostages; 5: Rath of the Synods; 6: Banqueting Hall; 7: Sloping Trenches and Grainne’s Fort; 8: King Loaghaire’s Fort; 9: Saint Patrick Church; 10: Hamlet; 11: Road to Maeve hill fort; 12: Road to Navan and Dublin.
Enaim Macha hill fort, also called Navan Fort, is situated at Navan, 2 miles west of Armagh, Northern Ireland. The site includes a circular bank, now defaced, and a ditch enclosing a number of earth - and stoneworks. At the summit rests a univallate tumulus, once a residential site subsequently used for ceremonial purposes. Emain Macha is probably identical with the Isam-nion mentioned in Ptolemy’s geography (2nd century A. D.). The site was destroyed, or abandoned some time before the advent of Christian evangelization, perhaps in the 5th century. The abandoned hill fort continued, however, to be the site of an annual feast through medieval times.
Rathgall, situated west of Tullow, county of Carlow, Ireland, is a trivallate hill fort, consisting of three more-or-less concentric stone ramparts enclosing a fourth, well-preserved wall of polygonal masonry. The last is clearly a two-period construction and at least in its primary phase is likely to date to the medieval period. The enclosing ramparts are probably prehistoric, but it is not clear if they represent a single phase, or several phases of building activity. The total area of the hill fort is 18 acres (7.5 hectares).
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