What is recorded here

Five shallow graves wait inside a thin limestone box, crowded together as if Brecan and his companions refused to leave one another. The chamber belongs to the old church at Teampall Bhreacáin, where faith and fear still breathe through wet stone. People may have laid lovers, children or travellers there, saving them from forgotten fields. Brecan himself may never have existed, yet the chamber keeps his name alive because the dead need a story more than a date.

This is one of five leabaí or grave-plots (see also GA110-023001-, GA110-023002-, GA110-023003- and GA110-023005-) associated with Teampall Bhreacáin (GA110-010001-) and Teampall an Phoill (GA110-010003-). The multiple grave plot is labelled ‘St Brecan’s Grave’ by Robinson (1980). However, Waddell (1973, 26) equates the grave with Leaba Bhreacáin (GA110-023001-). It consists of a rectangular area (5m NNE-SSW; 2m NNW-SSE) bounded by a kerb of thin limestone slabs. The enclosed area is further subdivided into five slab-covered graves. Four cross-slabs (GA110-023021-, GA110-023022-, GA110-023023- and GA110-023024-) have been placed against its W edge (ibid.). (Gosling 1993, 145, no. 838) Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 8 March 2016

St. Breacán was a 6th-century Irish monk and hermit associated with the Eoghanacht dynasty, known for founding several monastic sites in Munster. His graves are often linked to early Christian pilgrimage traditions and local healing practices.

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