Burial ground, Rathmalode, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Grounds
In the townland of Rathmalode on the Dingle Peninsula, a patch of ground to the west of a local farmhouse carries the long-standing reputation of being a burial site.
No bones have been turned up, no grave markers identified, and no physical evidence has emerged within living memory. The place exists, in other words, almost entirely as oral tradition, a named absence on the landscape rather than anything you could photograph or measure.
That kind of ambiguity is not unusual in this part of Kerry. The Corca Dhuibhne region, the westernmost stretch of the Dingle Peninsula, is extraordinarily dense with archaeological sites, from prehistoric standing stones and promontory forts to early Christian remains, and local memory has long served as an informal record-keeping system where official documentation falls short. The reputed burial ground at Rathmalode was noted in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the peninsula, which catalogued the area's sites in considerable detail, though even that survey could do little more than record the tradition and acknowledge the absence of corroborating physical evidence.