Grave Yard

The priory of the Crutched Friars of St. John at Kells (ME017-044026-) was situated outside the town on the Dublin road, at the bottom of the E-facing slope. There are no visible remains of a church in a rectangular graveyard (dims c. 45m E-W; c. 30m N-S) defined by masonry walls. There is a cross-slab, a 13th-century effigy of a woman, and a large fragment of a graveslab in the graveyard. Archaeological monitoring (02E1244) of the construction of a new wall at the S and W of the graveyard demonstrated that the wall was built on bedrock (D c. 0.6m) (Meenan 2004). Repairs to the graveyard wall were archaeologically monitored (E005304) by N. Roycroft during 2021 and some sixteenth century architectural fragments and a possible sixteenth century graveslab were identified on the surface while the probably site of a church was also recognised (excavations.ie 2021:550). A full survey of the graveyard inscriptions has been undertaken (Mc Cabe 2007) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 2 July, 2014 Amended: 10 March 2023

A medieval friary graveyard, associated with the Crutched Friars of St. John at Kells; significant as a religious and burial site linked to a known monastic foundation.