placenamesColp
Colpa
Excavations at Colp West revealed settlement features from several periods.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Colpa · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Colp · English · main form
Place & story
Bronze Age ground beneath Colp West
Linda Clarke and Donald Murphy’s report on excavation at Colp West, within Colp parish in County Meath, records work between September 2000 and February 2001. A D-shaped enclosure produced a calibrated date range of 1520–1310 BC. Pottery, pits and post-holes supplied further evidence of Bronze Age activity, although the functions of some features remained uncertain. [2]
A ringfort and changing boundaries
Later settlement included a ringfort with an attached oval enclosure. The report gives calibrated ranges of AD 598–684 for the ringfort and AD 569–679 for the oval enclosure. Subrectangular enclosures followed, altering the settlement’s layout. A bronze pin, bone comb and fragment of glass bead were among the finds associated with the early medieval phase. Excavation did not establish the site’s full extent: it continued south beyond Colp Road. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Meath
- Barony
- Duleek Lower
- Coordinates
- 53.70229, -6.30469
- Mapped area
- 23.31 km²
- Logainm ID
- 1941 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Colp. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- 2001:952 Colp West, Meath, licence 99E0472 extension · Linda Clarke and Donald Murphy, Archaeological Consultancy Services
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2021-11-04. How this page was prepared.