{"id":232555,"date":"2026-01-07T16:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/232555\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T16:08:09","slug":"how-a-wicklow-hillfort-confirmed-as-irelands-oldest-settlement-puts-end-to-theory-that-vikings-built-our-first-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/232555\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Wicklow hillfort confirmed as Ireland\u2019s oldest settlement puts end to theory that Vikings built our first towns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A hillfort in Baltinglass. Photo: County Wicklow Heritage\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/5eaed6e1-d2df-4a69-9b5c-990679839134.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">A hillfort in Baltinglass. Photo: County Wicklow Heritage<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">A Wicklow hillfort in the west of the county has been declared the largest, nucleated settlement in prehistoric Ireland and Britain by researchers at Queen\u2019s University Belfast.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">The findings, according to \u00adresearchers, suggest early city development in northern Europe likely occurred nearly 500 years earlier than previously thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A hillfort in Baltinglass. Photo: County Wicklow Heritage A Wicklow hillfort in the west of the county has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,4657,43],"class_list":["post-232555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-myles-buchanan","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}