Graveyard, Loughrea, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Burial Grounds
Loughrea, the east Galway town that takes its name from the grey lake at its edge, has long been known for its medieval Carmelite friary and its remarkable collection of early twentieth-century ecclesiastical art.
Less remarked upon is the graveyard associated with the town, which holds a quiet place in the archaeological record of the region as a scheduled monument in its own right, separate from the more celebrated sites nearby.
Graveyards recorded as archaeological monuments in Ireland tend to fall into a few broad categories: early medieval burial grounds attached to ruined churches, post-medieval parish cemeteries that grew up around later foundations, and occasionally sites where Christian burial practice overlapped with much older use of the land. Loughrea itself has a layered past, with the Anglo-Norman de Burgh family establishing a settlement here in the thirteenth century and the town developing steadily around its priory and later its Augustinian and Carmelite foundations. A graveyard in this context might represent any one of those threads, or several of them at once.