Children's burial ground, Aghatubrid, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Burial Grounds

Children’s burial ground, Aghatubrid, Co. Kerry

Scattered across the southern sector of an old enclosure in Aghatubrid, on the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry, roughly 300 uninscribed stones mark the dead.

Most bear no name, no date, no inscription of any kind. They are simply placed, clustered especially thickly around a leacht, a low cairn-like monument used in Irish devotional tradition, and their silence is the point. This is a ceallúnach, a burial ground of the unbaptised or marginalised dead, where those excluded from consecrated church ground, most often infants and young children, were quietly interred across generations.

The geography of grief here was apparently quite specific. Writing in 1910, the Delaps noted that children tended to be buried near the southern boundary of the enclosure, while adults occupied the more central ground. That distinction, documented over a century ago, adds a particular weight to what the stones themselves cannot say. Nearly all of them are uninscribed, which was common in ceallúnaigh where official record-keeping had no place and grief expressed itself through the simple act of placing a stone. One exception stands out: a grave-marker found in the interior of a house site to the south-west bears a Latin cross and reads "In Memory of P. Egan", a rare fragment of named memory amid the anonymous hundreds.

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 Children’s burial ground, Aghatubrid, Co. Kerry. 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