What is recorded here

The Relic Grave Yard in County Cavan, Ireland holds a circular chamber thirty to thirty-five metres wide where an eighteen-century iron gate still swings between octagonal stone posts. Its earliest readable marker appears in 1763, yet a reused cross-inscribed lintel hints that the site predates human memory or formal record. The earth bank has absorbed surrounding fields, suggesting the graveyard did not arrive so much as it emerged through repeated burial and forgetting.

Marked on all OS eds. Circular graveyard (int. dims. 35m NNW-SSE; 30.4m ENE-WSW) enclosed by a bank of earth and stone with modern external trench. The outer face of the bank has been modified and incorporated into the field boundary. Entrance at ESE through iron gate held on 18th-century octagonal stone gateposts, with stone walling on either side. The earliest identifiable gravestone dates to 1763. A cross-inscribed stone recorded by Davies (1948, 97) and reused as a headstone, may have originally functioned as the lintel of a doorway. (Patterson, Gaffikin and Davies, 1938, 146) The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Cavan' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1995). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research. Date of upload/revision: 22 December 2008

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