Burial, Shankill, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Burial Sites
Somewhere along the coastal fringe of Shankill in south County Dublin, human remains lie within a cliff face, their exact whereabouts unknown.
This is not a site that appears on any heritage trail or signposted walk. It exists, rather, as a catalogued absence, a find recorded but never fully pinned down.
In July 1969, the remains were uncovered within a cliff face, sheltered beneath a pile of stones. What investigators observed suggested the presence of a collapsed structure, its form indicated by a substantial layer of granite stones. The granite is consistent with the local geology of the Dublin and Wicklow mountains, where such stone was widely available and commonly used in early construction. The record of the find was compiled by Geraldine Stout and draws on research published by the National Museum of Ireland, with reference to Cahill and Sikora's 2011 survey. Beyond that, the record grows thin. No date of burial was established from the available notes, no name attached, no certain period assigned. The site sits in the catalogue as a question more than an answer.
Because the precise location has never been confirmed, there is no meaningful way to visit this site in any conventional sense. The cliff-face setting suggests a coastal or hillside context somewhere within the Shankill area, but to go looking would be to wander without a destination. What the record does offer is a reminder of how frequently the Irish landscape gives up traces of the past in circumstances that resist easy interpretation, a jumble of granite, a fragment of bone, and a date in a summer month more than half a century ago. For anyone researching early burials in the greater Dublin area, the National Museum of Ireland and the Sites and Monuments Record held by the National Monuments Service are the appropriate starting points for tracing what little documentation exists.