Kilbride Grave Yard, Ballylusk, Co. Wexford
Co. Wexford |
Churches & Chapels
A site labelled 'grave yard' on an 1839 Ordnance Survey map that shows no actual evidence of burial is already a curious thing.
This low-lying corner of County Wexford holds an early ecclesiastical enclosure known as Kilbride, a name deriving from Cill Bhríde, meaning the church of Brigid, and typically associated with foundations of considerable age. The site sits on a gentle rise above the surrounding terrain, with a stream running north to south just to its east. At its centre, where a church once stood, there is now only a cairn of stones.
The enclosure is oval in shape, measuring roughly 80 metres north to south and 62 metres east to west, dimensions that fall within the range commonly associated with early medieval monastic or ecclesiastical boundaries in Ireland. Such enclosures were typically defined by an earthen bank and an outer ditch, and the remains of both survive here. The bank, still around 5.5 metres wide and 0.4 metres high in places, runs from the south-west to the north-west, accompanied by an external fosse, a defensive or boundary ditch, approximately 5 metres across. A later field bank cuts slightly into the southern edge of the enclosure, a quiet reminder that agricultural reorganisation has been chipping away at sites like this for centuries. The site was recorded as 'Kilbride' on the first edition of the six-inch Ordnance Survey map, as noted by O'Flanagan in 1933, and the combination of the place name, the oval enclosure, and the central cairn all point towards an origin that may predate the Norman period entirely.