What is recorded here

Children died young in that valley and adults carried them to a square stone box beside the Valencia river. The place kept small bodies separate from ordinary graves, marking loss so the community could remember what it had lost. A cross and plain slabs still stand where love and fear built a boundary around childhood.

Children's burial ground inside ecclesiastical enclosure described by O'Sullivan and Sheehan (1996, 277, no. 946) as follows; 'This heavily overgrown square enclosure [KE079-035001-] is located on a slight rise close to the S bank of the Valencia river, just W of Cahersiveen town. Measuring 32m square internally, it is bounded at S by a 1m wide rubble wall that is faced with upright slabs on both sides. A wall of similar construction forms the S sections of the E and W sides of the enclosure, and elsewhere the site is defined by a stone built wall of relatively modern date. No entrance feature is apparent. The interior of the enclosure is traversed by an E-W row of intermittent upright slabs, located c. 10m from its N limits. On the S side of this row is a pair of conjoined huts [KE079-035005/006-] and a leacht [KE079-035003-] which is surmounted by a stone cross [KE079-035----]. A large number of uninscribed upright slabs occur in the SE quadrant of the enclosure, which presumably relate to its period of use as a ceallúnach [KE079-035007-]'. Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 9 August 2022

Christian early medieval burial ground; associated with a monastic site. Significance lies in its indication of early Christian funerary practices and possible use of the site for infant or child burials.

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