Grave Yard, Kilmacanoge, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Burial Grounds
At the western edge of a narrow valley in Kilmacanoge, Co. Wicklow, a small stream running southward marks the boundary of a graveyard that holds considerably more layers of history than its modest setting might suggest.
Enclosed within a well-built mortared stone wall, the site takes a broad subrectangular shape, measuring roughly 61 metres east to west and 32 metres north to south, with a single entrance on the eastern side. The legible burials date from the eighteenth century, though what surrounds them hints at a much longer period of use.
Two features set this graveyard apart from a straightforward post-medieval burial ground. The first is the presence of a church within the enclosure, the kind of association that often points to early Christian origins, where a pattern of continuous religious use stretched from the medieval period through to the post-Reformation centuries. The second is a bullaun stone, a large rock or boulder bearing one or more cup-shaped hollows ground into its surface, which are found across Ireland and are generally associated with early ecclesiastical sites. Their precise function is still debated, with suggestions ranging from grinding implements to vessels used in ritual or penitential practice. The combination of a church, a bullaun stone, and a walled enclosure positioned on level ground beside a stream follows a pattern recognisable from early Christian monastic settlements elsewhere in Ireland, even if the visible fabric here belongs mostly to later centuries.

