What is recorded here

Half a kilometre southwest of Kiltimagh, a low knoll rises from undulating pasture, its western slope steep enough that early graves were terraced directly into the earth. That ancient angle still shapes the yard, where uninscribed slabs and rough headstones crowd the top and slopes beside the medieval church. The community kept returning to this exact spot, extending the grounds southeast and later northeast as generations passed, until late-twentieth-century gravel finally smoothed the uneven surface. Beneath that modern coating, the old terraces and dense rows remain visible in the logic of the land, preserving a continuous local memory that stretches back through the nineteenth century and possibly into the late eighteenth.

In undulating pasture, c. 500m to SW of Kiltimagh town, located on a low knoll with a steep slope W–NW. The earliest part of the graveyard encompassed the top and slopes of the knoll where the medieval church (MA080-026001-) is located. It is shown on the 1838 OS 6-inch map as an irregular-shaped enclosed area accessed at SE by a narrow lane. In the late 19th- /early 20th-century the graveyard was extended to the SE and later in the 20th century it was extended further to the NE and E. The oldest part of the graveyard is densely covered with graves, aligned E–W, many in close-set N–S rows. The majority consist of horizontal, uninscribed stone slabs with associated headstones. Many of the headstones are roughly shaped, and uninscribed. The inscribed headstones mostly date to the 19th century, with one possibly dated to the late 18th century. Many 20th-century graves are intermixed with the earlier graves. The ground surface is uneven, and to W and NW many of the graves are terraced into the natural slope. The graveyard was gravelled over in the late 20th-century. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 30 November 2021

Medieval Christian graveyard; associated with a church dating to the late medieval period. Its significance lies in its potential to provide insights into local religious practices and burial customs of the time.

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