What is recorded here

Mound and shadow in West Cork. A church stood there, then vanished into soil and memory. The graveyard beside it may have closed after a soldier buried a murdered priest, forcing the dead to leave. Larch still grows over the place where humanity stopped believing it clean enough to remember.

In overgrown larch plantation. Shown on 1842 OS 6-inch map as roughly oval enclosure (c. 80m NW-SE; c. 50m SW-NE) defined by broken line, marked 'Site of Grave Yard' with rectangular ruinous structure (c. 20m E-W; c. 10m N-S) (CO062-140002-) at centre, marked 'Site of Church'; only 'Church (site of)' marked on 1904 and 1937 OS 6-inch maps; surrounded by small triangular field on 1937 OS 6-inch map. Low mound (c. 10m E-W; c. 7m N-S), at centre of triangular field, represents only visible remains of site. This may be what remains of church site pointed out to Hartnett as 'low mound about 30 feet by 20 feet oriented E.-W.' at centre of larch plantation. No visible surface trace of graveyard, except for standing stone (H c. 0.7m; Wth c. 0.6m) (CO062-140003-). Hartnett (1939, 290) notes tradition that this is earlier site of Matehy parish graveyard (9530) and that 'the dead' left here on account of the interrment of a soldier who had previously murdered a priest. The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cork. Volume 3: Mid Cork' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 14 January 2009

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