What is recorded here

Inishcaltra is a tiny Clare island where a young woman was buried inside the protective ditch of St Michael’s Church, perhaps between 1024 and 1163. She may have been twenty-five to thirty-five when she died, close enough to the sacred centre to suggest love, status or desperation. The island still holds that much intimacy: a small church, a narrow ditch, and one life given back to the earth beside the place people came to pray.

Situated in the fosse of the D-shaped enclosure (CL029-009) around St Michael’s Church (CL029-009) on Inis Cealtra. Excavations in the 1970s (licence no. E000180) revealed a burial cut into the fosse of the enclosure. Post-excavation work in 2015 yielded a radiocarbon date range of Cal AD 1024-1163 (UBA-30142). The burial is possibly of a female aged 25-35. (Seaver and O’Sullivan 2015, 11-14, 35) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 19 July 2016

A burial within a D-shaped early Christian enclosure; likely 6th–8th century AD. Its significance lies in its association with the monastic site of Inishcaltra, indicating early Christian funerary practices in the region.

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