Monasterevin (), also Monasterevan, and Mevin is a town in County Kildare, Ireland. The town lies on the River Barrow and the Barrowline, a canal branch of the Grand Canal. The population was 4,246 at the 2016 Census. Location and Access Situated 63 km from Dublin on the R445 road, Monasterevin has been relieved of much through-traffic by the opening in 2004 of a section of the M7 motorway bypassing the town on the N7 Dublin to Limerick route. Monasterevin railway station is on InterCity rail lines for trains from Dublin to the southwest (Cork, Limerick and Tralee) and west (Galway and Mayo). The town is also on Ireland's canal network, linking the Grand Canal and the River Barrow. History Monasterevin is situated on the border of County Kildare and County Laois. The towns and districts of Rathangan, Kildare, Portarlington and Athy surround the parish. The main geographical features of the countryside are the River Barrow, its tributaries, the extensive bogland and the limestone outcrop of Moore Abbey Hill. Pre-historic Era In pre-historic times, glacial activity shaped the landscape. The meltwater from the retreating ice-sheet formed outwash plains of gravel to the east and west. These are of course the Curragh and Heath. The land between is mainly limestone and proved an ideal path for the River Barrow, fed by its tributaries the Black and the Figile. Evidence of the early Stone Age is sketchy but there are traces of Neolithic man in the area. A dolmen, now collapsed, once marked the burial of some important tribal potentate in a local townland. During the Barrow drainage, hundreds of stone axe heads were found on the river-bed at each of the three major crossing points that occur within the town. Their presence may indicate the importance of Monasterevin as a fording point on the mystical Baru. Neolithic travellers may have sacrificed the valuable axe heads to the spirit of the Barrow or Baru. Or they may have been placed in the shallow water to mark the significance of crossing the boundary between two peoples. The Bronze Age in Monasterevin was the age of the small farmer as evidenced by several earthwork enclosures. One such is the earthwork enclosure just above the town referred to as the Aquafort, resting as it does on the spit of land where the River Figile joins the River Barrow. At the time it would have been