What is recorded here

In December 1987, workers in the kitchen garden of Abbeyleix House uncovered fragments of a human femur and tibia mixed with horse bones, buried just sixty centimetres beneath light sandy loam. The discovery sat close to an old church and graveyard that the Viscount de Vesci claimed dated before 1750, suggesting a forgotten burial rather than ordinary waste. Vincent Butler examined the scattered pieces before they returned to the earth, leaving behind a quiet puzzle about whose body and whose horse shared that narrow grave.

The files of the National Museum of Ireland records that in December 1987 human remains were discovered in the kitchen garden of Abbeyleix House, in the townland of Abbeyleix Demesne, Co. Laois. The remains were found at a depth of c.0.6m in light sandy loam and consisted of portions of a human and horse skeleton. The remains were found close to the old church (LA023-036001-) and graveyard (LA023-036002-), which according to the landowner, Vioscount de Vesci, dated to before 1750 AD, and occupies the site of a pre-Reformation church. The bones were examined by Vincent Butler and the human bones was found to comprise two fragments of a femur and one fragment of a tibia, while the horse remains consisted of fragments of skull, vertebrae, humerus, radius, pelvis and femur. These bones were returned to be reburied at Abbeyleix (NMI File) (Cahill & Sikora 2011, vol. 2, 487). Compiled by Caimin O'Brien Date of upload / revision : 08 December 2010

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