Rathregan

Nearest town:
Dunshaughlin (5km NNW)
OS reference:
N9749447816
OS sheet:
50
Latitude:
53° 28' 16.86 N
Longitude:
6° 31' 53.8 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Rathregan (Round Barrow(s)) by ryaner

Impressive fosse and bank on the western side of the barrow.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jan 26, 2026
Image of Rathregan (Round Barrow(s)) by ryaner

Looking south over the quarried top of the barrow.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jan 26, 2026
Image of Rathregan (Round Barrow(s)) by ryaner

Way more impressive than I expected from reading about it in the Archaeological Inventory.

Image credit: ryaner
ryaner
ryaner Jan 26, 2026

Articles

Rathregan

ryaner
ryaner Apr 23, 2026

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.

Miscellaneous

Rathregan
Round Barrow(s)
ryaner
ryaner Jan 26, 2026

From the SMR at archaeology.ie:

© Tailte Éireann | National Monuments Services | National Monuments Service

ME044-023---- : Barrow – mound barrow : RATHREGAN

Description: Located on a slight NW-SE natural ridge that is unconnected with the NW-SE defunct railway line from Dublin to Athboy and Navan that is immediately to the NE. A NW-SE section of the Tolka River is c. 100m to the NE. This is depicted as a small circular feature described as a ‘Fort’ on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map and as a hachured feature on the 1908 edition. It is a circular grass-covered mound (diam. of base 22m ENE-WSW; H 1.5-1.8m) that has a grass-covered quarry (diam. of top 8-9m; max. D 1.1m) on top. There are traces of a fosse (Wth of base c. 2m; ext. D 0.3m) at SW, and a straight outer bank at SW (Wth of base 7m; ext. H 0.9m; L c. 15m) and NW (L c. 20m) that might be unconnected with the barrow.

The above description is derived from the published ‘Archaeological Inventory of County Meath’ (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1987). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 10 July 2007
Amended: 22 November 2021

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