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Childrens Burial Ground

Children's burial ground

What is recorded here

Childrens Burial Ground is a small, unmarked square beside the Galway ringfort where set stones still point east and west like rows of tiny beds. The children may have belonged to the fortress family, and their short lives may have ended in fever, birth or the ordinary cruelty of childhood. They are not named in the surviving account, but the care taken to align their graves suggests they were not discarded. They were placed, remembered and left behind.
Within a ringfort (GA015-006----). Well-preserved roughly square unenclosed area (N-S 23m, E-W 21m) within which numerous set stones indicate graves oriented E-W. (O'Flanagan 1927, Vol. 1, 27) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Galway Vol. II - North Galway'. Compiled by Olive Alcock, Kathy de hÓra and Paul Gosling (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1999). Date of upload: 05 August 2010

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What survives
Recorded monument

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