Burial, Farranrory, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Burial Sites
Beneath a recently ploughed and reseeded field on a south-facing upland slope in County Tipperary, several human burials lie undisturbed, covered back over after being accidentally exposed more than a century ago.
There is nothing to see at ground level, no marker, no depression, no visible trace of what lies beneath, only grass over ground that holds its quiet secret.
In the early 1900s, ploughing work on this field brought the burials to light at a depth of roughly two and a half feet below the surface. Rather than excavate or remove them, whoever made the discovery chose to leave the remains in place and cover them back over, a decision that preserved what may otherwise have been lost or dispersed. The site sits within a broader prehistoric landscape: a ring-barrow and a burial mound, both of which are circular funerary monuments of the kind commonly built during the Bronze Age, lie approximately 138 metres and 260 metres to the east respectively. The clustering of such sites across a single hillside suggests this upland area in Tipperary held some significance for those who used it for burial over a long period.