Graveslab, Kilmacoo, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Kilmacoo, Co. Wicklow

Some stones attract attention precisely because they have disappeared.

At Kilmacoo in County Wicklow, a graveslab once lay close to a bullaun stone, a bullaun being a boulder with one or more cup-shaped hollows ground into its surface, typically associated with early ecclesiastical sites and sometimes with folk ritual. The slab was described as lying flat with its rough side facing upward, as though it had been turned deliberately, or perhaps simply settled that way over time. Those who had seen the underside reportedly found no inscription, which places it in an ambiguous category: neither a clearly marked memorial nor an obviously ordinary stone.

The record of this slab comes from the Ordnance Survey Letters, a remarkable series of correspondence compiled in the nineteenth century as surveyors gathered local historical and topographical information across Ireland. The reference was later published by O'Flanagan in 1928. By 1990, however, when the site was examined directly, the graveslab could not be found. Whether it had been moved, buried further under shifting ground, or simply absorbed into the landscape in some less recoverable way is unknown. What remains is a description of something face-down and plain, noted secondhand by people who had glimpsed its hidden surface and found nothing remarkable there, which somehow makes its absence feel more pointed.

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