The Mystery of the Hill Fort Capital

Why is Baltinglass in south Wicklow the ’Hill Fort Capital of Ireland‘ yet so few know about it?

I went to find out and searched for an entry point at the hill nearest the town. It is called the ‘Pinnacle’ and seemed the most accessible of the 13 prehistoric forts in the area.

For an obvious tourist attraction there were no signs for where to begin climbing (I found out the reason later).

A local simply told me ‘Take the path beside the graveyard and follow it’ but the path soon faded away. A thick wall of yellow gorse lay ahead between me and the summit, beautiful but impenetrable.   

I spent an hour edging my way around the gorse looking for a gap and negotiating fences.   

At the top there was nothing more ancient than a radio tower and a cross. On the hill behind was what looked like a stone fort.  It was too early to give in but the grassy ground soon gave way to broken rock and each step had to be taken with care.  

On the second summit there was a huge heap of stones. The shale was too unstable to climb and look inside so I missed what I had come to see. The stones in fact were the collapsed walls of a fort and inside was an exposed passage tomb.

Why would people live in a fort around a passage tomb? However the more urgent question was how to get back down the hill.

Unwilling to retrace the circular way by which I had come I set off in the opposite direction. More fences had to be negotiated but there was less gorse. Finally at the bottom only a locked farmyard remained between me and a road.  

I shouted to attract attention and eventually an irate man appeared demanding how I had got there and did I not know this was private land? Who told me about the hill, how did I get in and what did I want there? Did I not see all the ‘no entry’ signs warning people off?  

I tried to explain there had been no one to give me directions and I had seen no signs. Finally he conceded there was a road ‘two fields away’ and left me to cross a few more fences to get there.   

It was only later I discovered that visitors to the hills are discouraged because they ‘vandalise the land’. How the rocky hillside could be vandalised was not explained but I took it that meant sheep had been stolen.

I then began to see why the ‘Hill Fort Capital of Ireland’ is so little known and visited. Probably because of strong local feelings Wicklow County Council makes no effort to advertise what could be a great tourist attraction.  Building hillforts may have been a long-standing local tradition to ‘keep vandals out’ and now if there is a sudden revival of fort building in the ‘Hill Fort Capital of Ireland’ you can blame intrepid day-trippers like me.