Graveyard, Clonshire More, Co. Limerick

Co. Limerick |

Burial Grounds

Graveyard, Clonshire More, Co. Limerick

A rectangular walled enclosure in County Limerick holds a quiet but telling detail: as recently as 1834, it contained the shafts of two very ancient crosses, a reminder that the ground here had been considered sacred long before anyone thought to record the fact.

The site is known locally as Templenacille, a name with the ring of old Irish about it, and the church that still stands within it carries the formal designation LI021-029001- in the archaeological record. That the crosses were noted but apparently no longer in place suggests a history of slow attrition, the kind that overtakes ecclesiastical sites over centuries of quiet use and occasional neglect.

The graveyard itself measures roughly 65 metres north to south and 40 metres east to west, enclosed by a stone wall built sometime after 1700, with an entrance gate set into the southern wall. The church occupies the southern quadrant of this space. The two cross shafts, each recorded separately under their own monument numbers, were documented by Samuel Lewis in 1837 in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, drawing on survey work from 1834. Lewis's dictionary is a reliable source for early nineteenth-century observations of Irish antiquities, and his mention of the crosses at Clonshire is one of the few fixed points in the site's documented history. The monument as a whole is now subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014, which places legal obligations on landowners and limits what can be altered or removed.

The site sits in Clonshire More, in County Limerick, and the enclosing wall with its southern gate gives a clear sense of the graveyard's boundaries on approach. Visitors should be aware that this remains an active or at least historically continuous burial ground, and conduct themselves accordingly. The church ruin and the general layout of the enclosure are the main things to look for; the cross shafts noted by Lewis may no longer be visible in their original positions, so it is worth approaching with realistic expectations. The preservation order means the site is formally protected, which is some reassurance that what remains is less likely to disappear quietly than what came before it.

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