Navan fort

Navan Fort is a large earthwork of circular plan surrounding the summit of a drumlin in pleasant rolling countryside. The site, a pagan sanctuary. Where best preserved on the west, the ditch is 4m deep and the external embankment 15m wide and 4m high. The impressive earthwork encloses two monuments on the hilltop, a ring barrow (Iron age burial site) and a large mound. Excavations in the 1960s revealed that the mound was a composite structure built in 95 BC at the end of a long sequence of earlier activity. Recent excavations demonstrated that the main enclosure was also built in the 90s BC.
This site is identified as the Emain Macha (from Emain perhaps meaning twins and Macha, the name of the local goddess) of legendary and literary fame. In the Ulster Cycle of early Irish mythological tales Emain was portrayed as the headquarters and sacred place of a military dynasty, the so-called Red Branch knights, ruled by Conchobar mac Nessa who was advised by the druid Cathbad and championed by CuChulainn, the Hound of Ulster.