Children's burial ground, Derrynacoulagh, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Burial Grounds
Tucked into the south-western corner of an ancient earthwork enclosure in Derrynacoulagh, a small patch of ground holds the unmarked graves of children, its boundaries traced by low stone markers that barely clear the soil.
This is a cillín, a type of informal burial ground once used across Ireland for those excluded from consecrated churchyards, most often unbaptised infants. What makes this site quietly arresting is its setting: the burial ground occupies a section of a rath, a circular or oval ringfort of earthen banks built in the early medieval period, most likely between the sixth and tenth centuries. The pairing is not entirely unusual in Ireland, where the old enclosures were sometimes reused by later communities, but it gives the place a layered, almost palimpsest quality.
The burial ground measures approximately twenty-two metres north to south and eighteen metres east to west, a roughly rectangular space within the curved geometry of the older earthwork. The grave-markers are uninscribed, simple upright stones ranging from around ten to thirty centimetres in height, giving nothing away about who lies beneath them or when they were placed there. Mature deciduous trees and undergrowth now cover the area, which lends it a dense, enclosed quality quite different from the open fields surrounding most ringforts in the county.
The site sits within a wider rath recorded in the archaeological inventory of south-west Kerry, and visitors approaching it would find the burial ground largely concealed by vegetation. The low stones are easy to overlook unless you know to look for them close to the ground, partially obscured by roots and leaf litter.