Burial ground, Curraheen, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Burial Grounds
At the edge of a gentle slope in the Tipperary uplands, a low earthen enclosure sits in pasture with views across a valley to the east, the peaks south and southwest of Devilsbit Mountain closing off the horizon in one direction, and Knockanora rising to block it in another.
Locally it is simply called a burial ground, which is a reasonable enough description, though what lies within it is considerably more layered than that label suggests. Near the eastern end of the enclosure, a grass-covered cairn, roughly nine metres by seven, rises less than a metre from the surrounding ground. Cairns of this kind are stone mounds associated with ancient burial practice, and this one is far from empty in its significance: at its eastern end, an upright rectangular slab carries decoration on three of its faces, including a carved human figure on the west face, scroll and spiral motifs on the east face and south side, and, on the upper northwest angle, an ogham inscription. Ogham is an early medieval Irish script that encodes letters as a series of notches and strokes cut along a central stemline, most often found on standing stones and typically recording a personal name.
The enclosure itself is sub-rectangular, measuring approximately 18 metres north to south and 45 metres east to west. A low earthen bank defines the northern and eastern sides, though it has worn down to a gradual scarp towards the west, where cattle have further eroded the edge and exposed the stony material beneath. Along the southern boundary, where a narrow boreen runs east to west, a heap of deposited slate stone, partly swallowed by nettles and brambles, marks the line between enclosure and track. The boreen may itself have clipped the original southern edge of the site over time. The western and southwestern limits follow the natural break in slope rather than any constructed boundary, the ground simply dropping away. The combination of earthen bank, cairn, carved slab, and ogham suggests a site of considerable age and accumulated use, occupying a position in the landscape that was clearly chosen with some deliberateness, even if the specific history attached to it has largely dissolved into the local name.


