Graveyard, Jigginstown, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Burial Grounds
A graveyard with no visible graves is a peculiar thing, and the one associated with the ruined church at Jigginstown in County Kildare qualifies on precisely those terms. The ground gives nothing away to the eye; no headstones, no earthen mounds, no boundary markers. What revealed the site's true nature was not archaeology or documentary research, but rabbits. Writing in 1905, Fitzgerald recorded that small human bones had been turned up to the surface by burrowing animals on the south side of the church ruins, in a spot where the ground rises slightly above the surrounding field. That modest elevation, barely noticeable underfoot, is the only physical clue that something lies beneath.
The field in question has long been known locally as the "Church Field", a name that preserved the memory of the ecclesiastical ruins even as the visible evidence faded. The church itself, recorded separately, presumably served a community whose dead were laid in this ground, though no trace of their burial survives in any form that a casual visitor could recognise. Fitzgerald's observation suggests the bones were close to the surface on that slightly raised southern margin, disturbed by animal activity rather than formal excavation. Beyond that detail, the history of the burial ground, who used it, when it fell out of use, and what became of any markers it may once have carried, remains unrecorded.