Batterstown (Baile an Bhóthar, the town of the road) is a small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hamlet on the Rathoath to Trim road. It has a pub, a church, a GAA club and a petrol station/shop. It’s surrounded by ancient land that has been colonised by centuries of farmwork and subdivided by hedgerows.
Three hundred metres north-east of the village, behind the church, the infant Tolka (An Tulcha) flows, having risen about a mile north-west in the townland of Pelletstown. There used to be a Batterstown train station, the now defunct line running parallel to the river.
Rathregan townland takes up and envelops much of Batterstown itself, taking its name from the massive rath/habitation site between Rathregan church and Rathregan House. I had been to the rath a few years before but the entry on the SMR that showed a barrow 350 metres to its south-east was the target for today.
We parked at the old ruins beside the rath and clomped our way through the sodden fields, heading along the old cattle-rutted rail cutting that truncates the northern arc of the barrow. The misty rain didn’t dampen our spirits, back out on the hunt after a hearty breakfast in nearby Dunshaughlin.
Expectations were low as we climbed out of the deep rail line having spied the mound from three hundred metres further west. However, it is still an impressive monument, though badly robbed, with almost all of its bank and ditch destroyed. There is also a deep bowl dug into the centre of the mound. The western arc of the bank and ditch remain, allowing the interpretation that this is indeed a ring-barrow. It’s quite miraculous that so much has survived and it was well worth coming here.