Oldest prehistoric settlement in Ireland and Britain discovered in Co Wicklow

Brusselstown Ring hillfort with test trenches marked. The County Wicklow hillfort has been declared the largest, nucleated settlement in prehistoric Ireland and Britain by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast. 

The largest and oldest settlement in prehistoric Ireland and Britain has been identified as a hillfort near Baltinglass in Co Wicklow.

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast have published a new study proposing this site as Ireland’s earliest “proto-town” which predates the Viking towns that had been considered Ireland’s earliest urban settlements by two millennia.