Flat cemetery

The National Monuments Service's description

In pasture on the S-facing lower slope of Knocksentry Hill, 550m E of the NE shore of Lough Gur. A standing stone annotated 'Leagaun' (LI032-051----) is located 80m to NW; Circle O (LI032-060----) lies 150m to SE as are a number of other smaller ‘stone circles’ and mounds (LI032-058/321/059----).
The cemetery site is not depicted on the 1840 ed. OSi 6-inch or 1897 ed. OSi 25-inch maps. The site is depicted as an antiquity annotated ‘Kistvaen Field’ on the Cassini OSi 6-inch map. A kistvaen or cistvaen is a tomb or burial chamber formed from flat stone slabs in a box-like shape. The OSi orthoimage taken 2005-12 or Digital Globe orthoimages taken 2011-2013 shows the cemetery site as a grassy field. Several antiquarian and later archaeological accounts of burials are recorded in this field. Croker first referenced the site (1833, 110). Barry (1900, 374) described the sites as follows; ‘Close to the road on Knocksentry, the ancient cemetery remembered by the old people of the district, is not marked on the Ordnance Survey. John Hynes, aged 80 years, who says he was at the reclaiming of this field, which is now a rich pasture field, describes the digging up of some thirty stone-lined graves from six to seven feet in length, full of large human bones, and pointed out some of the stone slabs’. The burials are referred to by O’Kelly (1944, 24), where he described Kistvaen Field as, ‘The field has the above name on the O.S. map. There are various references to it by previous writers who say that stone cists and bones have been found here. There is a tradition in the neighbourhood that the field was a graveyard at one time. Parts of the field have been tilled repeatedly and in 1941 the whole field was ploughed up, but no indication of the presence of cists was found. A number of trial trenches were made at different parts of the ploughed area but the results were entirely negative’. The location of the site is visible on Google Earth orthoimages taken 28/06/2018 and 20/09/2020. The cemetery dates from either the Early Bronze Age or Early Christian period when stone cists or kistvaen were one of the inhumation burial rites. The site appears to be similar to the last phase of use of Circle J (LI032-022020-) on Knockadoon Peninsula.

See attached Google Street View Oct 2009 and Google Earth orthoimages

Compiled by: Edmond O’Donovan

Date of upload: 17 November 2020

References

O'Kelly, M.J. 1944 A survey of the antiquities in the barony of Small County, Co. Limerick. North Munster Antiquarian Journal 4, 16-53.

Croker, T.C. 1833 Druidical remains near Lough Gur,
Co. Limerick. Gentleman's Magazine (February
1833), 105–12.

Barry, J.G. 1900 Report from the Hon. Secretary, East County Limerick. The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 374-5.