Drumanagh

Drumanagh is a headland near the village of Loughshinny, 20 km north of Dublin, Ireland. It features a 19th-century Martello tower and a large iron age promontory fort which has produced Roman artefacts.Some archaeologists have suggested the fort was a bridgehead for Roman military campaigns, while others suggest it was a Roman trading colony or a native Irish settlement that traded with Roman Britain.CharacteristicsDrumanagh is nearly 900 m long and 190 m wide. The area consists of a small peninsula defended by three rows of parallel ditches on the landward side. It is surrounded on three sides by the Irish sea, showing huge erosion that could have reduced its size to the present 44acre and may have destroyed evidences of old Roman structures.The site is privately owned and is a Recorded Monument, protected under the Section 12 of the National Monuments (Amendment) Act, 1994, and by a Preservation Order placed on it in 1977. Although its archaeological importance has been known since the 1950s, when ploughing turned up sherds of Roman samian ware, it has not been subject to archaeological excavation, but numerous artefacts have been dug up by illegal metal detectorists. One such collector attempted to sell a trove of Roman coins and ornaments at Sotheby's in London in the 1980s, which was impounded and deposited in the National Museum of Ireland. Since then, a legal dispute over ownership has prevented the artefacts and their provenance from being discussed publicly.