Rosenallis, Rosenallis, Co. Laois

Archaeologists know it existed, somewhere in and around the church, the graveyard, and the present village, but its exact footprint remains unlocated, a ghost of occupation that has not yet resolved itself into foundations or field boundaries.

What makes Rosenallis particularly interesting is the early Quaker presence recorded there. By 1660, at least twenty Quaker families had established themselves in the area, a remarkable concentration for rural Ireland at that period. The Quakers, formally the Religious Society of Friends, arrived in Ireland during the mid-seventeenth century and often settled in tight-knit communities that kept their own records, maintained their own burial grounds, and operated largely outside the structures of the established church. That twenty families were already present by 1660 suggests the community had been taking root for some years before that date. Archaeological testing carried out in 2004 by Ellen O'Carroll probed the village in an effort to better understand the buried settlement, though the medieval and seventeenth-century occupation in the area remains, officially, unlocated.