Burying Ground, Ballywalter, Co. Mayo
Co. Mayo |
Burial Grounds
In a rough pasture just south of a church in Ballywalter, County Mayo, around a hundred low grave markers lie so heavily overgrown that the ground barely hints at what it holds.
The site occupies an irregular plot of roughly fourteen metres north to south and fifteen metres east to west, its western edge defined by a line of trees. The markers are low, suggesting either significant age or prolonged neglect, and the vegetation has long since reclaimed the spaces between them. It is the kind of place that registers only faintly in the landscape, easy to pass without recognising it for what it is.
The site sits in close relation to the church immediately to its north, a proximity that suggests it served the surrounding parish community over an extended period. A survey of the Ballinrobe district compiled by D. Lavelle in 1994, covering the wider area including Lough Mask and Lough Carra, recorded the ground in its current condition, noting the overgrowth and the approximate count of markers. Beyond that record, the individual histories of those buried here remain largely unreadable, their stones too low and too weathered, or too obscured, to give up names or dates easily.
