Graveyard, Aderrig, Co. Dublin

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Burial Grounds

Graveyard, Aderrig, Co. Dublin

In the flat, low-lying landscape of north County Dublin, a small artificial mound carries the remains of a medieval church and one of the most sparsely marked graveyards in the county.

The graveyard is unfenced, and only two headstones survive, both placed outside the south-western corner of the ruined church rather than within any clearly defined burial ground. One belongs to the Russell family and dates from 1733; the other commemorates Jane McKeone, who died on 16 January 1820 aged 63, and was erected by her son John McKeone of Mountstreet, Dublin. The inscription is precise and tender in the way that Georgian memorial language often is, which makes its isolation here all the more striking. Beyond these two stones, the ground gives little away.

The church itself, measuring roughly 36 feet by 18, appears to have been one of the small stone-roofed buildings constructed in the latter part of the thirteenth century. A lancet-headed doorway, the narrow pointed arch typical of early Gothic ecclesiastical architecture, was noted in 1857 as the only surviving feature that could suggest a date, most of the cut stonework having been removed over the years by people salvaging dressed stone. By that point, the site had already been described by the antiquarian J. Sloane, writing in the Irish Literary Gazette, as presenting "a forgotten and desolate appearance", with the old Aderrig lane that once served it absorbed into adjoining farmland. The church had connections beyond its modest scale: early in the thirteenth century, Archbishop Luke directed that five marks from its annual funds be sent to light the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. It was later erected into a prebend, an ecclesiastical benefice in which the income supports a cathedral clergyman, and by 1306 was valued at 114 shillings, with Adam de Stratton recorded as its prebendary.

The site sits within agricultural land, and the absence of any fence around the graveyard means its boundaries are hard to read on the ground; the levelled enclosure that defines the raised platform is easier to trace on survey records than in person. The ruined church walls, described in 1857 as thickly covered in ivy, remain the most visible marker. There are no formal facilities here and no signage to speak of, so it rewards those who arrive with the relevant map references to hand. The two headstones, standing a little apart from the ruin, are worth reading closely.

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