What is recorded here

Red sandstone still holds the shape of a knife-cut cross, its arms drooping like wet rope. The graveyard sits high above Dingle Harbour, scattered with three hundred unnamed stones that mark a church no longer visible. Whoever chipped the T-bar into raw rock worked quickly, perhaps for someone they loved or feared. The dead remain clustered around that lost centre, waiting for the living to remember why the stones were set there.

In 2010 a graveyard survey carried out by Laurence Dunne recorded the following details about cross-inscribed stone No. 1124: 'Kildrum Graveyard is situated on the N side of the Dingle Peninsula 4km NE of Dingle. It is situated on an elevated site at 50m OD on the lower ENE slopes of Leathaoibh with views S over Dingle Harbour and Mount Brandon to the NE. The old graveyard [KE043-130001-] is studded with around three hundred small unnamed headstones, notched grave markers and cross-slabs that are disposed around the interior. The spatial and density patterning of these gravemarkers most likely reflect the location of the medieval church [KE043-130----] and also the oval enclosure that is evident on the 1st Ed OS map of 1841. There are no visible, above ground, coherent, remains of the medieval church of Kildrum today. Twelve previously unrecorded cross-slabs were plotted and recorded in the old medieval burial ground. Two other cross-slabs (1115 and 1124) have shared characteristics in that they both have crosses that extend up into notches at the top of the stones, a feature that is also noted on the missing cross-slab. Cross-slab 1124 is made from unhewn local red sandstone with an incised Latin cross with a T-bar at the base of the shaft and downturn bars to both arms'. See attached plan and photographs courtesy of Laurence Dunne Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien based on details provided by Laurence Dunne Date of upload: 27 June 2022

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