Children's burial ground, An Lóthar, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Grounds
On the lower western slopes of Farraniaragh mountain, in rough pasture above Ballinskelligs Bay, there is an early Christian enclosure that carries two names pointing to two different kinds of use.
The Irish name Ceallúnach an Lóthair suggests a children's burial ground, one of the sites known across Ireland where unbaptised infants were laid to rest outside the formal bounds of consecrated parish cemeteries. Yet the site also goes by Cill Draighneach, a name rooted in the word for church, and the physical remains inside the enclosure are those of a functioning religious settlement, not simply a burial place. That overlap, between a community of the living at prayer and a landscape quietly assigned to those who died before they could be fully received into it, gives the site an unusual gravity.
The enclosure itself is subcircular, measuring roughly 31 metres north to south and 26 metres east to west internally, defined by a stone wall that still stands up to 1.2 metres high on its outer face. A blocked entrance on the south-east side, its edges formed by upright slabs, is the clearest point of access, though two opposing uprights on the north-west may mark a second, now uncertain, opening. What makes the interior particularly interesting is a raised platform in the north-east quadrant, retained by large upright slabs, many of which now lean outwards with age, and reached by two stone steps. On that platform sit the settlement's most significant remains: a small oratory, a leacht, and three cross-inscribed slabs. A leacht is a low cairn or altar-like structure associated with early Irish devotional practice, typically used for prayer or commemoration. A circular hut breaks the circuit of the enclosing wall on its western side, suggesting habitation as well as worship. The cross-inscribed slabs, set into this elevated and deliberately constructed space, indicate that whoever shaped this enclosure intended the platform to function as the ceremonial and spiritual centre of the whole complex.