placenamesCreggan Lower
Road excavations exposed evidence of prehistoric habitation in this Westmeath townland.
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
- Creggan Lower · English · main form
Place & story
A house beneath the road scheme
Excavation in January 2006 on the N6 Kilbeggan–Athlone scheme uncovered a probable dwelling and nearby pits at Creggan Lower. Pottery, stone tools and radiocarbon evidence suggested a date between about 1200 and 800 BC. Twelve post-holes outlined a roughly rectangular building approximately five metres long and three metres wide. Charcoal analysis suggested oak supports. Most large pits lay outside it, and the excavators found no internal hearth. [2]
Evidence of making and using tools
Finds included pottery, worked chert, animal bones and charred grain. Two bone awls occurred with unfinished chisels made from cattle bones; fractures apparently interrupted the chisels’ manufacture. The authors interpreted the domestic remains and production waste together as evidence of habitation by craftspeople, with leather or textile working among the possible activities. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Townland
- County
- Westmeath
- Barony
- Brawny
- Civil parish
- Saint Mary's
- Coordinates
- 53.41531, -7.88834
- Mapped area
- 0.65 km²
- Logainm ID
- 50991 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Creggan Lower. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- A bone to pick: Bronze Age settlement in Westmeath, Seanda 4 (2009), pp 28–29 · Ed Lyne, Ian Riddler and Nicola Trzaska-Nartowski; National Roads Authority
- Boundary geometry retains its source attribution and licence in the downloadable geographic record. Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2007-11-30. How this page was prepared.