What is recorded here

Inside an ancient rath in Carrowkeel, a cramped northern corner held at least thirty-four infants and young children, buried with pine coffins and shroud pins during the late 19th century. Crude stones marked the heads and feet of several graves, transforming a forgotten hillfort into a desperate local sanctuary for the very young. Road builders uncovered the co-mingled bones in 2002, forcing a final relocation to Crossmolina graveyard after decades of silent waiting beneath the old earth.

In a rath (MA038-004----). In 2002-3 the rath was partly excavated (02E0598) in advance of road construction (Zajac 2011). The excavation revealed that a confined area (2m N–S; 4.5m E–W) in the northern sector of the rath interior was used as a children's burial ground. Several graves had crude stone markers at both the head and foot of the grave. The majority of the burials were poorly preserved, the bones disturbed and co-mingled, but five oval-shaped grave-cuts, oriented roughly E–W, contained intact skeletons. A minimum of 34 but possibly as many as 60 individuals were interred here, aged between 29 weeks in utero and six months. There was a single burial of an adolescent/adult. Shroud pins, as well as nails and fragments of pine wood, probably from coffins, were recovered. The burials were dated to the late 19th-century, based on the evidence of the shroud pins and on radiocarbon determinations. The burial ground was fully excavated, and following post- excavation analysis, the bones were reinterred in Crossmolina graveyard. (Zajac 2011). Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 23 July 2019

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