Burial, Oldconnaught, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Burial Sites
A low, tree-covered rise in the ground near Oldconnaught is not the kind of thing that draws the eye, yet the earth here has already given up skeletons and decorative metalwork once, and the site has never been fully explained.
The slightly elevated ground, sitting on a gentle ridge, was disturbed during nineteenth-century quarrying operations, and what came out of it raised more questions than answers.
According to a record published by Wakeman in 1894, the quarrying work uncovered several skeletons along with bronze fibulae, the pin-and-clasp fasteners used to secure clothing, which in an Irish context are often associated with early medieval or earlier burial practice. The presence of multiple individuals alongside personal ornaments suggests this was a recognised place of burial at some point, though precisely when remains unclear. The site attracted further attention in 1989, when archaeological excavations were carried out ahead of the construction of the Shankill to Bray By-Pass. The results were modest: a single ditch was identified, containing a piece of iron and a fragment of clay pipe, material considered likely to be post-medieval in date. The nineteenth-century finds were not relocated, and no earlier burial features were recorded during that investigation, leaving the original deposit essentially without context.
The site sits on gently undulating ground and is marked today by a cluster of trees on a slightly raised area, the kind of low eminence that can be easy to overlook from a road. Anyone approaching should be aware that the immediate surroundings were significantly altered by the by-pass construction in the late 1980s, so the landscape no longer reflects what nineteenth-century quarry workers would have encountered. The tree cover is the most reliable visual indicator of the spot. Given how little was recovered in the 1989 excavation, there is no particular season or condition that makes a visit more rewarding; what is interesting here is largely what remains absent, or at least unaccounted for.

