Grave Yard MA039-107---- in Tonybaun

Located on a slight E-facing slope, 100m W of the River Moy. This children’s burial ground is indicated on the 1838 O 6-inch map as ‘Grave Yard’ and on the 1930 edition as ‘Children’s Burial Gd.’; it is depicted on both editions as a rectangular area, bordered by a main road on the W side. In the 1838 OS Name Books (no. 16) it is recorded as ‘a small graveyard for still-born and unbaptized babies’. According to local information, it continued in use as a children’s burial ground up to the mid-20th century, and was also said to have been used for Famine burials. When inspected in 1996 it was evident as a slightly raised, rectangular area (int. 17.5m E–W; 14.5m N–S) defined on the N and E sides by low, ruined remnants of a stone wall/scarp (ext. H 0.6m), and on the W and the S sides by field walls. The W wall was flanked by the existing Ballina-Foxford road, N26. The stone scarp on the E side had a low internal rim (W c. 2m), with a row of set stones on its inner edge. The interior had an uneven surface, densely scattered with small and medium-sized stones, with a few upright stones evident. It was largely concealed by overgrowth; hawthorn and sycamore trees grew around the perimeter and within the interior area. In 2003 it was fully excavated (03E0139) in advance of a realignment of the N26 road (Nolan 2008, 89-101). The excavation revealed that the children’s burial ground, which encompassed a rectangular area (ext. 17m N-S; 22m E-W) overlay a much earlier burial ground (MA039-107003-), which was established in the late 15th-century. The existing enclosing walls, most likely built in the early 1800’s, had slightly enlarged the earlier burial ground: they were built 1-2m outside an earlier enclosing wall, which was on a slightly different axis. The uppermost or surface level consisted of a dense concentration of roughly rectangular stone grave settings, one hundred in total. The best preserved examples had a regular rectangular outline, marked by uniform-sized stones, with the head (west) and foot (east) marked by large stones laid flat, but there were also less formal settings, consisting of loose roughly rectangular piles of small stones. Beneath these surface grave outlines, grave-cuts were not clearly defined, and the layout of burials proved complex and irregular; some skeletons had largely decayed away, and others were disturbed by later graves. The stone grave settings and the uppermost layers of burials related to the use of the burial ground in the modern era as a children’s burial ground. The skeletal remains of 181 children and adolescents were found; the majority (147) were infants of less than 2 years. Three sets of twins were found. Some infants were interred in coffins, small wooden boxes held together by iron nails; in many instances the coffins had decayed, the presence of the nails the only proof that they had existed. Shroud pins, made of copper wire, accompanied twenty seven burials. (Nolan 2008, 89-101). Underlying these burials, there was a layer of burials belonged to the earlier burial ground (MA039-107004- ); no infants were found at that level. A leacht (MA039-107002-), a small stone-built altar-like structure, was constructed in the W half the burial ground, predating its use for children’s burials. Following the excavation, the skeletal remains were reburied with full funeral rites in the parish graveyard (MA039-053002-) at Ballynahaglish.