What is recorded here

Friary Field in Rathmore, County Longford, is a quiet pasture where human bones keep resurfacing, first in the late 1940s and again during land-reclamation in 1960 near three earthworks. Local story holds that Franciscan monks from Athlone gathered the remains and carried them away, leaving the field empty but never quite forgotten. The dead may have been monks, farmers, or travellers; the earth does not say. It only gives them back when people stop looking and start digging.

In pasture. A burial was uncovered in this field in the late 1940s/early 1950s (NMI Topgr. file). Further 'skeletons (presumably human)' were uncovered during land-reclamation works in 1960 about 1m 'under the surface in two distinct places' at or in close proximity to three 'earthworks' (see LF026-023----; LF026-024---- and LF026-025----). The field is known locally as 'Friary Field and thought to be the site of a monastery [see LF026-040----]' (Cahill and Sikora 2011, ii, 495). It is locally believed that members of the Franciscan community in Athlone, county Westmeath gathered up the skeletal remains and reinterred them in Athlone (pers. comm. Ray O'Connor). The exact find spots of the burials are unknown. Compiled by: Patrick F. O'Donovan Date of upload: 23 July 2013

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