Burial ground, Reanahoun, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Burial Grounds
On the hillside of Mullach a Radhairc in north Cork, four small flagstones stand upright in the ground, marking the graves of famine dead.
That, at least, is what was recorded. The burial ground has never been formally located, and the stones, if they survive at all, remain unverified by any subsequent survey.
The record goes back to Bowman, writing in 1934, who noted the four graves on the hillside and described the upright flagstones as the only markers. Local knowledge at the time placed them at the very top of the hill. The graves almost certainly date to the Great Famine of the 1840s, a period when the scale of death frequently overwhelmed normal burial practice and the dying were interred quickly, informally, and sometimes far from consecrated ground. A few stones set on end was often all that distinguished such a place from the surrounding land. That the site has not been relocated since Bowman's account does not mean it has vanished, only that no one has been able to confirm it.