What is recorded here

Cill Chiaráin is a burial ground in County Galway where a small boulder shrine sits among the dead. The box is barely tall enough for a kneeling adult, yet it holds scattered stones, a piece of quartz and coins. People may have placed those things there for St Kieran, for a lost ancestor or for the chance that the dead still hear. The shrine does not explain itself. It waits beside the graves with its stones and quiet request for remembrance.

In the middle of the older part of the burial ground (GA077-017----). A roughly rectangular box-shaped structure (L 1.75m; Wth 1.35m; H 0.8m) is constructed of large natural boulders and roofed with smaller stones. Inside it loose scattered stones are visible on the ground as well as a piece of quartz and some coins. The structure is difficult to classify or date. It may be related to the slab or gabled shrines that are found on some early Christian sites or it may be of more recent date and related to some tradition associated with St Kieran. (Robinson 1985, 55) Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 7 August 2019

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.