What is recorded here

Bully's Acre holds a possible site for the 7th-century foundation of St. Maignenn, marked by a graveyard and the broken shaft of a 9th to 11th-century high cross. General Dikes enclosed the pauper ground in 1760, but cholera closed it to new burials in 1832. The land has therefore witnessed both sacred origin and desperate mortality, keeping its dead beneath the hospital avenue ever since.

There is a general consensus that the 'Cill Maignenn' which givesKilmainham its name was a 7th-century foundation associated with St. Maignenn. A possible location for this monastery is along the W boundary of the present grounds of the Royal Hospital in the area known as Bully's Acre where there is a graveyard containing a shaft of a 9th-11th-century high cross (18:20(284)). This graveyard has been closed for interments since the cholera epidemic of 1832. It was enclosed in 1760 by General Dikes, Commander of the Forces who caused the ground to be levelled and a stone wall built around it. It was a paupers graveyard up until the 19th-century. Human burials were uncovered during the construction of a new water main into the Royal Hospital via the W avenue (OPW 30/6/81, Clarke 2002, 17, 18).

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