What is recorded here

Indicated is the Bush of the Infants, an abandoned graveyard in County Kilkenny where unbaptized children were buried after the ancient church vanished. The earth rises barely half a metre above the surrounding field, hiding a rectangular memory that measurement cannot capture. Children still belong there, marked only by grass and the patience of soil.

On the gently sloping valley floor of the Dinin River which flows c. 170m to the E, in grassland. Described in the OS Letters (1839) as, 'a small obsolete burial ground called Sgeach na nGárlach (Sgeoch na nGarlagh e.e. the Bush of the Infants) in the Townland of Lios-na-Fuinsionn in this Parish; no trace of a Church can be discovered about it' (O'Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 15 (5)). According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 203), 'There was a very ancient church here in the northern extremity of the townland, one field from the Dinin river. There is not a vestige of it now. The graveyard is all overgrown with bushes, and is only used for the burial of unbaptized children. In English it is called the "churchyard"; its Irish name is Sgeach-nang-awrluch (Sceac na nGéarlach), i.e. the [burial] bush of the children. Previous to the Reformation, Lisnafunshin and Newtown belonged to St. Francis' Abbey, Kilkenny'. A roughly rectangular area (max. dims. 24m E-W; 21m N-S) rising 0.5m above the surrounding field, which is known as 'Church Field'. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 9 January 2019

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