Burial, Glenbevan, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Burial Sites

Burial, Glenbevan, Co. Limerick

Somewhere in the quiet farmland of Glenbevan, County Limerick, a burial site sits in the record books with far more questions attached to it than answers.

It is the kind of place that appears in archaeological literature almost as a footnote, catalogued and noted but rarely discussed at length, its physical presence on the ground now difficult to separate from the surrounding landscape.

What is known comes largely through the work of the National Museum of Ireland, whose excavation records from 1927 to 2006 were gathered and published by Mary Cahill and Маргит Sikora in their 2011 volume "Breaking Ground, Finding Graves," a systematic effort to bring together decades of burial investigations that had accumulated in archives without ever receiving proper consolidated treatment. The Glenbevan site appears in the second volume of that publication, compiled by Denis Power and uploaded to the record in August 2012. Beyond that bibliographic trail, the notes are sparse, which is itself telling. Many Irish burial monuments of this kind were encountered incidentally, during agricultural work or construction, and recorded only briefly before the pressures of practical life moved on. The National Museum's long-running excavation programme was designed precisely to capture those moments before the evidence disappeared entirely.

For anyone hoping to visit Glenbevan with a clear sense of what to look for, the honest answer is that the site record as it stands offers little to guide the eye. The published account in Cahill and Sikora's volume would be the most productive starting point, available through larger Irish academic libraries and through the National Museum itself. County Limerick's Sites and Monuments Record may hold additional spatial data that could help locate the general area. This is the sort of place that rewards researchers more readily than casual visitors, its significance residing less in visible remains than in what its excavation contributed to the broader understanding of burial practice in Ireland across the long span of the museum's fieldwork.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Burial, Glenbevan, Co. Limerick. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement