Rathgall Hillfort
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Rathgall Hillfort
Rathgall, ( Irish: ''An Ráth Gheal'') or the Ring of the Rath is a large multivallate hill fort near the town of Shillelagh. Dating from the Bronze Age, it consists of three roughly concentric stone ramparts with a fourth masonry wall dating from the Medieval period at its centre. Rathgall is a National Monument which is in state care. Excavations led by Barry Raftery Barry Raftery (16 August 1944 – 22 August 2010) was an Irish archaeologist and academic. He is best known for his pioneering work in wetland archaeology and Iron Age hillforts in Ireland. He was Professor of Celtic Archaeology in University Col ... in the 1970s the site are only partial, but yielded numerous artefacts including ceramic vessels, pot sherds and glass beads, which point to the middle to late Bronze Age activity on the site. A number of gold items have been found at the site also, as well as a burial site linked with later use of the site. Evidence of metal working comes from casts for tools ...
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County Wicklow
County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the east and the counties of Wexford to the south, Carlow to the southwest, Kildare to the west, and South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown to the north. Wicklow is named after its county town of Wicklow, which derives from the name (Old Norse for "Vikings' Meadow"). Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county, which had a population of 155,258 at the 2022 census. Colloquially known as the "Garden of Ireland" for its scenerywhich includes extensive woodlands, nature trails, beaches, and ancient ruins while allowing for a multitude of walking, hiking, and climbing optionsit is the 17th largest of Ireland's 32 counties by area and the 15th largest by population. It is also the fourth largest of Lein ...
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Leinster
Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of Ireland The Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland took place during the late 12th century, when Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land from the Irish, over which the kings of England then claimed sovereignty, all allegedly sanc ..., the historic provinces of Ireland, "fifths" of Leinster and Meath gradually merged, mainly due to the impact of the Pale, which straddled both, thereby forming the present-day province of Leinster. The ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties of Ireland#2.1 Pre-Norman sub-divisions, counties for administrative and judicial purposes. In later centuries, local government legislation has prompted further sub-division of the historic counties. Leinster has no official funct ...
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Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end o ...
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Irish Language
Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was the population's first language until the 19th century, when English gradually became dominant, particularly in the last decades of the century. Irish is still spoken as a first language in a small number of areas of certain counties such as Cork, Donegal, Galway, and Kerry, as well as smaller areas of counties Mayo, Meath, and Waterford. It is also spoken by a larger group of habitual but non-traditional speakers, mostly in urban areas where the majority are second-language speakers. Daily users in Ireland outside the education system number around 73,000 (1.5%), and the total number of persons (aged 3 and over) who claimed they could speak Irish in April 2016 was 1,761,420, representing 39.8% of respondents. For most of recorded ...
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Hill Fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of earthworks, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. Hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC, and were used in many Celtic areas of central and western Europe until the Roman conquest. Nomenclature The spellings "hill fort", "hill-fort" and "hillfort" are all used in the archaeological literature. The ''Monument Type Thesaurus'' published by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage lists ''hillfort'' as the preferred term. They all refer to an elevated site with one or more ramparts made of earth, stone and/or wood, with an external ditch. M ...
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Shillelagh, County Wicklow
Shillelagh () is a village in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is located in the south of the county, on the R725 regional road from Carlow to Gorey. The River Derry, a tributary of the River Slaney, flows through the village, while the Wicklow Way passes to the north and west. The village was planned as part of the FitzWilliam estate in the 17th century. In 2016, it had a population of 337. Sport Shillelagh has a Gaelic Athletic Association team and a soccer team. The team colours are sky blue and navy. Coollattin Golf Club, an 18-hole parkland course, is located just east of the village. Transport Shillelagh railway station opened on 22 May 1865, at the end of a branch from Woodenbridge via Aughrim and Tinahely Tinahely () is a village in County Wicklow in Ireland. It is a market town in the valley of the River Derry, a tributary of the River Slaney. Location and access It is located on the R747 road which links the west Wicklow town of Balting .... It closed to ...
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Medieval Period
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Roma ...
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Barry Raftery
Barry Raftery (16 August 1944 – 22 August 2010) was an Irish archaeologist and academic. He is best known for his pioneering work in wetland archaeology and Iron Age hillforts in Ireland. He was Professor of Celtic Archaeology in University College Dublin (UCD) for more than thirty years, and served as chair of the Department of Celtic Archeology at UCD from 1996 to his retirement in 2007. Early life and education Barry Joseph Raftery was born in Dublin, Ireland on 16 August 1944. He was the son of an Irish father and German mother, Joseph and Lotte Raftery. His father, Joseph, was an archaeologist who specialized in prehistoric Ireland and was keeper of Irish antiquities and Director of the National Museum of Ireland during his long career. Barry Raftery developed an interest in archaeology at the age of ten, after spending two summers working with his father in the excavations at Lough Gara. Raftery attended Belvedere College secondary school in Dublin. He studied archaeo ...
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Association Of Young Irish Archaeologists
The Association of Young Irish Archaeologists, or AYIA was founded in Belfast in 1968 by a group of students from Queen's University Belfast. Membership is automatic for individuals who are members of the AYIA's affiliated societies in the various universities, institutes and colleges around the country; however, recent graduate students and those relatively new to the profession are also eagerly encouraged to participate. The AYIA governing council is elected annually from representatives from the University, Institute or College where the next conference is planned to take place. The purpose of the association is to further communication and co-operation between interested parties, to provide a forum for new ideas and to foster interest and enthusiasm for archaeology at a 'junior' level in Ireland. As is clear from this, the use of the word 'young' is somewhat misleading as the AYIA's members may include individuals of any age who are undergraduates, postgraduates or relative ...
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Hill Forts In Ireland
A hill is a landform that extends above the surrounding terrain. It often has a distinct summit. Terminology The distinction between a hill and a mountain is unclear and largely subjective, but a hill is universally considered to be not as tall, or as steep as a mountain. Geographers historically regarded mountains as hills greater than above sea level, which formed the basis of the plot of the 1995 film ''The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came down a Mountain''. In contrast, hillwalkers have tended to regard mountains as peaks above sea level. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' also suggests a limit of and Whittow states "Some authorities regard eminences above as mountains, those below being referred to as hills." Today, a mountain is usually defined in the UK and Ireland as any summit at least high, while the official UK government's definition of a mountain is a summit of or higher. Some definitions include a topographical prominence requirement, typically or ...
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