Burial

The National Monuments Service's description

The files of the National Museum of Ireland records that in March 1988 human remains were discovered in the grounds of Portlaoise prison, Co. Laois (Cahill & Sikora 2011, Vol. 2, 488). A crouched burial was discovered at a depth of c. 0.6m during the construction of a new security fence. The site was investigated by Nessa O'Connor. By the time of the site investigation, the burial had been removed from its context. According to the finders, the burial lay with the head to the north. No artefacts had been found in the vicinity of the burial, and there does not appear to have been any stone protection around the remains. A lime deposit was noted in the soild surrounding where the skeleton was found, and was thought by O'Connor to perhaps be of significance. However, the bones did not appear to have been damaged as would be expected if this was quick lime. The only indication of date was that the burial pre-dates the prison wall built in 1830. The remains were retained in the Museum.

Compiled by Caimin O'Brien
Date of upload / revision : 10 August 2012

References

Cahill, M. and Sikora, M. (eds) 2011 Breaking ground, finding graves - reports on the excavations of burials by the National Museum of Ireland, 1927-2006, 2 vols. Dublin. Wordwell Ltd. in association with the National Museum of Ireland.