Children's burial ground, Rossard, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Burial Grounds
In a quiet stretch of rolling County Limerick pasture, a low circular mound sits on a gentle south-east-facing slope, its edges just barely rising above the surrounding grassland.
It does not announce itself. To an unknowing eye it might read as nothing more than a slight irregularity in the field, yet this modest enclosure, roughly eleven and a half metres across at its widest, was once a designated burial place set apart from consecrated ground, reserved exclusively for children.
Sites of this kind are known in Irish as cillíní, informal burial grounds used for unbaptised infants and others who, under Catholic ecclesiastical rules, could not be interred in a parish cemetery. The Rossard site sits within a long tradition of such places, often located at ancient or marginal spots in the landscape. When the Ordnance Survey Letters recorded it in 1840, the description was precise and understated: a circular form, covered in green sod, not rising much above the surrounding ground, and measuring approximately one chain, or about twenty metres, in diameter. The surveyors noted that it had been used as a place of interment roughly fifty or sixty years earlier, placing its period of active use around 1780 to 1790, and that it was used then only for children. The site appears on the 1923 Ordnance Survey six-inch map under the notation "Kyle, site of," a term that could indicate a former church or ecclesiastical enclosure, suggesting the ground may have had a longer, layered history before its use as a cillín. Antiquarian T. J. Westropp also referenced it in his early twentieth-century surveys of the area.
The monument today measures approximately eleven and a half metres north to south and six metres east to west, defined by a scarped edge up to around a metre in height. Small boulders visible in the western quadrant may represent grave markers, though they are unassuming and easy to overlook. The site sits on open pasture with clear views in all directions, so it is relatively easy to pick out once you are in the vicinity, though access across farmland should be approached with the usual courtesies. There are no formal facilities or signage. Visiting with the 1923 OS six-inch map as a reference will help orient you to what remains.