What is recorded here

Parknakilla Grave Yard for Children marks a subrectangular burial ground on a low Clare knoll, hidden beneath dense vegetation and still outlined on modern maps. The Irish name Maidhm-Talmhan suggests a mass burial, perhaps born of famine rather than ordinary death. Children may have been laid together in that small elevated patch while adults watched from the surrounding pasture, their grief buried as deep as the bones.

On an elevated area of a low knoll, in dense impenetrable vegetation, surrounded by low lying and gently undulating pasture and woodland. Depicted on the 1840 edition of the OS 6-inch map as a subrectangular area and named ‘Parknakilla Grave Yard for Children’. It retains a similar outline and is named ‘Children’s Burial Ground’ on the OS 25-inch map and 1921 edition of the OS 6-inch map. This was not accessible due to dense, impenetrable overgrowth on and around the monument. There is a natural plateau in the pasture field to the immediate NE. A field boundary (long axis NW-SE) respects the children’s burial ground NNW-NE, where it projects outwards, as depicted on OS historic mapping. According to Curry in 1839 (OSL, vol. 2, 305), Park-na-kille was the name of this field and in Irish, the townland name is Maidhm-Talmhan. This placename refers to a massacre or in this case, perhaps a mass burial associated with a famine. The following image has been uploaded: CL035-130----_01.jpg From E. General view of area of monument taken from pasture field at N. Compiled by: Mary Tunney, Alison McQueen and Vera Rahilly Date of upload: 14 January 2019

A Neolithic passage tomb; dates to the 4th–3rd millennium BCE. Its significance lies in its association with early ritual burial practices and communal use of landscape in prehistoric Ireland.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.