Grave Yard, Ardcandrisk, Co. Wexford

Co. Wexford |

Burial Grounds

Grave Yard, Ardcandrisk, Co. Wexford

A small parish church sits on a natural shelf near the eastern end of a low ridge in County Wexford, enclosed within a neglected graveyard defined by an earthen bank with external stone facing.

That combination, an earthen enclosure reinforced with stonework rather than a simple field wall, hints at considerable age; such boundaries were frequently laid down in the early medieval period, when ecclesiastical sites were demarcated with some care and permanence. The graveyard itself is roughly subrectangular in shape, measuring approximately forty to forty-five metres east to west and thirty to thirty-five metres north to south.

What makes the Ardcandrisk site particularly interesting is its clustering with other features in a compact area. Inside the church there is a rectangular font, the stone basin used for baptismal water, a fixture that implies a functioning liturgical life at some earlier point. Roughly a hundred metres to the north lies St Eusebius' Well, a holy well dedicated to a saint whose name is strikingly uncommon in an Irish context; Eusebius is far more familiar as an early Church historian and bishop from Caesarea than as a patron of a rural Wexford parish. About twenty-five metres to the south, a mound site adds another layer to the picture. Whether that mound represents a burial feature, an earlier earthwork, or something else entirely is not established here, but its proximity to the church and well suggests that this modest ridge carried significance for a long time before any formal parish structure was put in place.

The grouping of church, font, holy well, and mound within so short a distance of one another is the main reason this otherwise quiet and overgrown spot rewards attention. Such concentrations of early ecclesiastical and possibly prehistoric features are not uncommon in Ireland, but they are easily overlooked when none of the individual elements is especially large or well preserved.

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 Grave Yard, Ardcandrisk, Co. Wexford. 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