Grave Yard, Cowanstown, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Burial Grounds

Grave Yard, Cowanstown, Co. Kildare

In a quiet stretch of mixed farmland in County Kildare, a burial ground sits noticeably raised above the surrounding fields, its sub-rectangular platform lifted roughly 1.2 metres above ground level. That elevation is not accidental landscaping. It is the slow accumulation of centuries of burial, the ground built up layer by layer over generations until the dead occupy higher ground than the living farming around them.

The site belongs to the parish of Taghadoe, and was recorded as Coanstown burial ground in the Ordnance Survey Letters compiled by Michael Herity. Alongside the graves, it contains the ruins of an old church, the kind of pairing that appears repeatedly across the Irish countryside, where early ecclesiastical foundations became the focal point of community burial for centuries afterwards. The enclosing wall is modern stone, but the ground it contains measures roughly 45 metres east to west and 35 metres north to south. The legible memorial stones span the 18th to the 20th century, though the presence of church ruins suggests the site's use as a burial place goes considerably further back than the oldest readable inscription.

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