Graveslab, Killeely More, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Tombs & Memorials
In the townland of Killeely More, in County Galway, lies a graveslab, a carved or inscribed stone laid flat over a burial, of the kind that once marked the resting places of clergy, patrons, and local notables across medieval Ireland.
These slabs range from plainly incised crosses to elaborate carvings bearing interlace, effigies, or inscriptions in Latin or Irish, and their survival is often a matter of chance, depending on whether a church remained in use, whether a slab was reused as building material, or whether it simply sank quietly into the ground over the centuries.
The notes available for this particular monument are too sparse to reconstruct its history in any detail. What can be said is that Killeely More is a rural Galway townland, and the presence of a recorded graveslab there suggests the proximity of an early ecclesiastical site or burial ground, the kind of modest local foundation that once dotted the Irish countryside and has often left little above ground beyond a scatter of carved stones and a field name.