Burial ground, Lissarourke, Co. Cork

Co. Cork |

Burial Grounds

Burial ground, Lissarourke, Co. Cork

A small rectangle of pasture in Lissarourke, West Cork, holds a burial ground with no headstones, no inscriptions, and almost no visible trace above the grass.

What marks it out at all is a shallow fosse, a slight depression or ditch running along part of its perimeter, enclosing a space measuring roughly six metres long by four metres wide. It is, by any measure, an easy thing to miss.

The site appears on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1842 under the label "Kill Burial Gd.", which offers a quiet etymological clue to its age. The element "kill" derives from the Irish "cill", meaning a church or monastic cell, and its presence in a place name typically points to early Christian activity, often pre-dating the formal parish system that took hold in medieval Ireland. Burial grounds associated with such early ecclesiastical sites were frequently small and unenclosed, or only lightly defined, and many have left little physical evidence beyond the ground itself. The fosse here, shallow as it is, suggests some deliberate marking of the boundary, even if whatever once stood within it has long since disappeared. No grave markers have been recorded at the site.

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 ground, Lissarourke, Co. Cork. 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