What is recorded here

Donacarney Great and Donacarney Little hold a buried life beneath their knoll, where road works in 1964 and 2006 exposed human bone and a skull caught in disturbed soil. The bones may have belonged to someone who lived, loved and died before roads existed, yet paving and digging scattered the proof. What is clear is that the earth remembers even when human tools erase the shape of the remembering.

Situated at the junction of the N-S R150 Mornington to Bettystown road and the W-E L5614 road from Colp. It is also on a knoll which is on a general slope down to the E. Human remains were noted in a pipe-trench in 1964 and again in September 2006 (Reilly 2006; Murphy 2006) when road resurfacing and re-alignment work by Meath County Council excavated trenches which local archaeologist Kieran Campbell was able to examine. In a N-facing section (L c. 3.5m; H c. 0.5m) the old tarmac and its foundation (T c. 0.15m) covered a light brown stony soil that was flecked with fragments of human bone, and a human skull was at the base of the section. However, it is thought that the bones had been redeposited and were not in their original position. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 15 September 2021

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.