Burial Ground, Brosna, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Grounds
Beneath the surface of this graveyard in the centre of Brosna village, the ground has been quietly rising for centuries.
The southeastern and eastern sections of the enclosing sandstone and shale wall tell the story plainly: the original coping is still visible partway up, with several later courses of stone laid on top of it, the interior having been built up so many times over the generations that the old wall height is now readable only as a buried line. It is the kind of detail that passes unnoticed unless you know to look for it.
The site is associated with St Moling, a seventh-century Irish monk and bishop, and the graveyard's roughly circular boundary wall, visible on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1842, is likely a remnant of an early medieval ecclesiastical enclosure. The church that once stood within it has left no above-ground trace, though evidence of two other structures was recorded inside the boundary during a survey carried out by Buckley and Dunne in 2007. The earliest legible headstone dates to 1771 and marks the death of Mai Lean, its inscription still in good condition. A single cross slab, a simple cross engraved into worked sandstone, was found in the northeastern corner of the graveyard and may belong to the earliest period of the site's use. An architectural fragment, a punch-dressed rectangular piece of sandstone, sits on the exterior of the southern boundary wall. Associated with the graveyard is St Moling's Well to the southeast, a holy well that forms part of the same complex of early Christian features.
One detail recorded in the Irish Folklore Commission's Schools' Collection gives the graveyard a slightly different character. A flagstone over the grave of a Father Shine has a small hollow cut into its base where water collects, and local tradition held that rubbing this water on the eyes for nine consecutive mornings would cure eye sores and styes. A woman named Nellie O'Donnell, recorded as being ninety-nine years old, was said to have brought her children here and had their eyes cured by the practice. The grave is within the graveyard's boundaries, and the flagstone, if it survives, is worth seeking out.