Children's burial ground, Kilmore, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Burial Grounds

Children’s burial ground, Kilmore, Co. Kerry

A walled enclosure in north Kerry holds a particular kind of silence.

This is a killeen, a children's burial ground of the type found scattered across Ireland, where unbaptised infants were interred in ground considered separate from consecrated parish cemeteries. Catholic teaching, as it operated for centuries in Ireland, held that unbaptised children could not be buried in hallowed ground, and so families turned instead to older, liminal spaces, often ancient enclosures or sites already carrying some residue of the sacred. The killeen at Kilmore is one such place, its thick stone boundary wall still standing to a height of around two metres, quietly doing what it was built to do.

The enclosure is substantial. Its surrounding wall runs to about 1.4 metres thick, and the interior spans roughly 29.6 metres north to south and 26.2 metres east to west, making it a sizeable space by the standards of these sites. Entry is through a gate in the eastern wall, just over a metre and a half wide. Inside, numerous single upright stones mark individual burials, the typical modest memorial of a killeen, where formal headstones were rarely used. In the south-western sector a large slab lies broken. Nearby, to the south-east, lies the site known as Kilmore's Seven Churches, a complex early Christian ecclesiastical site, and the proximity of the two suggests this corner of north Kerry carried religious and communal significance across a long stretch of time.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Children’s burial ground, Kilmore, Co. Kerry. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement