What is recorded here

Burial Ground in County Mayo, Ireland holds unnamed field stones set close together beneath grass, beside formal headstones from the 18th and 19th centuries. The old rectangular yard kept its western and southern rubble walls after growing north and east, while a ruined church stood in its north-west corner when first mapped. A carved cross recovered near the church now stands inside it, as if the graveyard had given up one of its keepsakes but refused to forget the rest.

This graveyard is indicated on the 1838 OS 6-inch map as a rectangular walled area (c. 50m N–S; c. 40m E–W) accessed by a short laneway at N, and with a church (MA039-053001-) ‘in ruins’ in the NW quadrant. By the time of the 1930 edition it had changed little, but since then has been extended greatly to N and E, resulting in the removal of the old boundary walls on those sides. Mortared stone walls of uncoarsed rubble remain at W and S. Numerous low, upright uninscribed stone gravemarkers protrude from the uneven, grass-cover surface in the old part of the graveyard. Some consist of small, roughly rectangular slabs, but most are simple, rough field stones. They are arranged in roughly N-S rows, with the gravemarkers sometimes very close-set or contiguous. Interspersed between these simple gravemarkers, are formal, inscribed headstones, graveslabs and table tombs, dating to the 18th- and 19th-centuries, with a few 20th-century graves. A carved stone cross (MA039-053003-), found within the graveyard 25m SE of the church, is now located within the church. Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 21 February 2020

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