Children's burial ground, Skeheenaranky, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Burial Grounds

Children’s burial ground, Skeheenaranky, Co. Tipperary

At the edge of a small precipice above the Sheep River gorge in County Tipperary, a tight oval of rubble stone sits in waterlogged upland pasture, its walls barely visible beneath a covering of grass and moss.

It measures roughly six and a half metres across at its widest interior point, with walls about a metre and a half thick. The entrance, just wide enough for a person, faces the southeast. Inside, the ground is wet and heavily rushy, and some stones near the entrance have collapsed inward. According to local tradition, this is a children's burial ground.

Sites like this are known across Ireland as cillíní, informal burial grounds used for unbaptised infants and others who, under Catholic church law, could not be interred in consecrated ground. They occupy a particular place in Irish social and religious history, the grief surrounding them often kept quiet, the locations remembered only in local memory. The enclosure at Skeheenaranky follows the small oval form common to such sites, its rubble stone wall separating a tiny consecrated-by-custom space from the surrounding rough pasture. The precipice edge and the steep drop to the river below give the location an unintentionally dramatic quality, though the site itself is modest and unassuming. No grave markers appear to survive, and nothing about the place announces its purpose to anyone who does not already know.

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, Skeheenaranky, Co. Tipperary. 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.

Skeheenaranky, Co. Tipperary
52.33320363,-8.15422278

Ref: TS04215

Nearby Places

Earthwork, Ballynatona, Co. Limerick
Fulacht fia, Brackbaun, Co. Limerick
Fulacht fia, Brackbaun, Co. Limerick
Kiln - corn-drying, Brackbaun, Co. Limerick
Kiln - lime, Carrigeen, Co. Limerick

Advertisement