Grave Yard, Cloonkeen, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Burial Grounds
On a south-facing slope in north County Galway, a small raised patch of ground holds a cluster of modest set stones, their alignment following the old WNW-ESE axis that marks countless early Irish burial sites.
There is no enclosing wall, no gate, no church ruin nearby. The ground simply lifts slightly, and the stones are there.
When the first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map was drawn, this place was recorded as a very small C-shaped enclosure, roughly eight metres across. That enclosure has since disappeared, leaving only the subrectangular raised area, measuring about 8.2 metres by 6.3 metres, that survives today. The site is classified as a possible cillin, or cillín, the Irish term for an unconsecrated burial ground, typically used for unbaptised infants, though sometimes also for adults who were excluded from churchyard burial for one reason or another. These sites are scattered across the Irish landscape in considerable numbers, many of them unmarked on any official record and known only to local families. They tend to occupy liminal ground, field edges, old boundaries, slopes overlooking water, which makes this location above the Kingstown River quietly characteristic of the type.