Burial, An Chrois, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Burial Sites
In the townland of An Chrois in County Mayo, there is a recorded burial site, catalogued, classified, and then, for now, left largely to silence.
The fact of its existence is known; the details surrounding it are not yet in public circulation, which places it in an odd category of things that are officially recognised but practically obscure, present on maps and in monument records but without the accompanying narrative that would tell you who was buried there, when, or under what circumstances.
An Chrois is a small townland in the west of Mayo, a county whose landscape holds an extraordinary density of archaeological material, from megalithic tombs and early medieval enclosures to souterrains and field systems preserved beneath blanket bog. Burials in such settings can range enormously in date and type, from Bronze Age cist graves, in which a body was placed in a small stone-lined box set into the ground, through early Christian period interments, sometimes found near forgotten church sites or holy wells, to post-medieval burial grounds that never made it onto any ecclesiastical record. Without further documentation for this particular site, its place within that long span of human activity in the region remains open.