Site of Grave Yard, Middlequarter, Co. Waterford
Co. Waterford |
Burial Grounds
In a field of pasture in County Waterford, somewhere above the slow bend of the Brickey River, a graveyard and its church have effectively ceased to exist, at least above ground. The site is rectangular, roughly 80 metres east to west and 25 metres north to south, and on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1840 both the graveyard boundary and a church within it were still legible, if only faintly. Today there is nothing to see at ground level. The lane that once formed the southern boundary may be the most tangible remnant of the whole complex.
The church recorded here was known as Cill Lasrach, meaning Lasser's Church, a dedication that ties the site to an early Irish saint whose name also survives in the landscape immediately to the west, where the townland of Killoseragh preserves the same root. The identification was made by the Reverend Patrick Power in his 1907 study of place names in the Decies, the old territorial name for much of County Waterford. Cill, pronounced roughly like "kill", is one of the most common elements in Irish ecclesiastical place names, derived from the Latin cella and referring to an early church or monastic cell. The fact that both the church name and the adjoining townland name echo the same saint suggests the site had genuine local significance, even if no documentary record of its foundation or use has surfaced in what remains of the source material.
The plateau sits about 100 metres north of the Brickey River, which runs west to east through the valley below. The surrounding land is ordinary working pasture, and without prior knowledge of what the 1840 map shows, a visitor would have no reason to pause. There are no earthworks, no upstanding masonry, no grave markers visible. The site is the kind of place that rewards looking at old maps more than looking at the ground itself.