Grave Yard, Kildarra, Co. Mayo

Co. Mayo |

Burial Grounds

Grave Yard, Kildarra, Co. Mayo

On a ridge in Kildarra, County Mayo, a graveyard sits at the break of slope with extensive views opening out to the south.

That commanding position is itself a clue that this place has been in continuous use for a very long time, and the ground beneath the moss and grass holds more history than the surviving stonework immediately suggests. Underfoot, the surface is uneven and undulating, and many graves have lost their outlines entirely beneath the vegetation. Among those still visible are recumbent slabs, Celtic-style headstones from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and simpler uninscribed stone markers whose age is harder to determine.

The 1838 Ordnance Survey six-inch map shows the graveyard sitting in the north-western corner of a large sub-rectangular space recorded simply as 'Glebe', a term for land historically set aside for the maintenance of a parish clergyman, which hints at a Church of Ireland association during the post-Reformation period. The OS letters compiled that same year noted the presence of a church within the graveyard, and a low, sod-covered bank running roughly east to west in the north-western corner, around seventeen metres long and barely half a metre high, may be what remains of it. The original enclosing wall on the southern side was removed during the twentieth century when the graveyard was extended downhill, and a concrete path now runs along what was probably the line of that old wall, marking the division between the historic core and the newer ground. The northern two-thirds of the site sit on a raised, relatively level area, while the southern third drops away, with traces of rough scarping or terracing suggesting past efforts to manage the slope. Layered into the local memory around this site is the tradition of a mass rock nearby, one of the flat, exposed stones used as improvised altars by Catholic priests during the Penal era when public worship was prohibited, and a holy well dedicated to St Bridget lies approximately a hundred metres to the south-west.

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