Monument, Lackan, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Holy Sites & Wells

Monument, Lackan, Co. Westmeath

At a T-junction on a public road near Lackan in County Westmeath, traffic now passes over a spot that once served as a resting place for the dead.

A heap of stones stood here, in the middle of the road itself, where funeral parties would set down a corpse so that those present could pray over it before continuing to the burial ground. These roadside stations were a recognised feature of Irish funerary custom, and this one was substantial enough that the Ordnance Survey mapped it simply as 'Monument' in 1837, marking it squarely in the centre of the carriageway.

The 1837 Ordnance Survey Name Book for Lackan Parish recorded the structure with unusual plainness: a heap of stones at which the peasantry lay down corpses to pray for them. By the time the revised six-inch map was produced in 1911, the notation had changed to 'Monument (Site of)', a small but telling shift that indicates the stones had been removed or levelled sometime in the intervening decades. No surface trace remains today. The monument once sat in close relation to other sites of local religious significance: Lackan Chapel and its graveyard lie roughly 500 metres to the north, and Tobercrummeen holy well, a spring associated with prayer and devotion, sits about 320 metres to the south-east. The clustering is unlikely to be coincidental. Funerary processions moving toward the chapel and graveyard would have passed directly over this junction, and the stones provided a fixed point at which the community could pause, set down their burden, and observe the customary rites before the final approach.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Monument, Lackan, Co. Westmeath. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement