It is the insects that make it strange. When archaeologists examined soil samples taken from the burial fill, they found the remains of flies whose presence told a particular, troubling story about the circumstances of the dead.

The excavation, carried out by archaeologist Linda G. Lynch under licence reference 05E0880, uncovered the remains of six individuals in total. Four were left undisturbed in the ground, but two were carefully excavated because they lay in immediate danger of disturbance. These two were juveniles: one aged between six and nine years at the time of death, the other between twelve and fourteen. Both had been buried at the same time. Soil samples from the burial fill were submitted to archaeoentomologist Eileen Reilly, a specialist in the study of insect remains from archaeological contexts, a discipline that can shed light on conditions at the time of death and deposition. She identified two species: Calliphora vicina or vomitoria, commonly known as blowflies, and a member of the Phoridae family, sometimes called scuttle flies. Both are strongly associated with decomposing flesh. Their presence in the burial fill led to an initial assessment that there may have been a significant delay between the deaths of the two children and the point at which they were finally interred. Why that delay occurred, and what it meant for those who buried them, remains an open question.

Kildimo is a small village in west County Limerick, situated roughly between Limerick city and Askeaton. The burial ground itself is not a prominent landmark, and access may require some local enquiry. The four individuals left in situ remain in the ground, and the site deserves a certain quiet respect. For anyone with an interest in how forensic and environmental science intersects with archaeology, the insect evidence recovered here offers a small but genuinely arresting example of what buried soil can still reveal centuries, or perhaps millennia, after the fact.