Scurlock's Grave Yard, Crosscoolharbour, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Burial Grounds
Most graveyards are rectangular, following the logic of a field or a church plot.
Scurlock's, on the edge of County Wicklow, is hexagonal, a six-sided enclosure roughly 29 metres north to south and 38 metres east to west, sitting on level ground above a steep south-easterly slope with the waters of Blessington Reservoir visible approximately 50 metres away. That reservoir, formed in the 1940s when the River Liffey was dammed at Poulaphouca, submerged a considerable stretch of the surrounding landscape, which makes the proximity of this graveyard to the present shoreline quietly suggestive of how much the local geography has been remade.
The graves themselves are clustered on the western side of the enclosure, marked by stone slabs spanning the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The earliest legible date is 1747, though the site almost certainly has older roots. A curving depression on the north-eastern side of the graveyard is thought to represent the remains of an earlier circular enclosure beneath the present ground surface. Circular enclosures of this kind are a familiar feature of early medieval Ireland, often associated with ecclesiastical or settlement sites, and their outlines can sometimes survive for centuries as subtle undulations in the earth long after any structures above ground have vanished. Whether a church or chapel once stood here, associated with that earlier enclosure, is not recorded, but the combination of an unusual boundary shape and a possible underlying circular form suggests the site has a longer and more layered history than its 18th-century gravestones alone would imply.