Grave Yard, Ballylegan, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Burial Grounds

Grave Yard, Ballylegan, Co. Tipperary

At Ballylegan in County Tipperary, a graveyard sits on a rock outcrop above dramatic drops on two sides, the result not of natural erosion but of large-scale quarrying that has carved away the ground immediately to the west and north of the old church walls.

It is the kind of place where industrial history and sacred space have ended up in uncomfortable proximity, the earth literally removed from beneath the margins of the dead.

The site appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map as a roughly circular area marked by a dashed line to the south of the church. By the time later surveys were made, that shape had become more irregular, measuring approximately 38 metres north to south and 26 metres east to west. What the maps cannot convey is how thoroughly the ground has resisted any clear reading. There is no standing boundary wall or fence to define the graveyard's edge, and the area is so heavily overgrown with long grass and brambles that its true extent simply could not be established on inspection. The dashed lines on the maps, which typically indicate an uncertain or approximate boundary, turn out to be an honest representation of the difficulty; nobody has been able to draw a firm line around this place.

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Pete F
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