Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland
Children's burial ground
Cloonturk (tirawley By.), County Mayo, Ireland
The record
- Townland
- Cloonturk (tirawley By.)
- County
- Mayo
- Country
- Ireland
- First-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- Latest-edition OS map
- Not indicated
- SMR number
- MA039-019----
This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗
The National Monuments Service's description
This record refers to a children’s burial ground in Cloonturk townland, which was recorded by Aldridge (1969, 86). He listed the OS 6-inch co-ordinates as ‘w 48cm, n 14.8 cm’ and noted that it was ‘in a rath’. These co-ordinates place the burial ground at approximately ITM 522778 816033. At that location, which was inspected in 1996, there is no trace of a children’s burial ground or a rath. In the field there is a disused, grass-grown quarry pit (diam. c. 15m; max. D c. 2m), partly obscured by brambles and hawthorn. There is no evidence that the pit was used as a burial ground.
It seems likely that there is an error in Aldridge’s published co-ordinates. Two possible raths (MA039-022----; MA039-049----), both now destroyed, are located in Cloonturk townland; the children's burial ground may have been located in one of these. The exact location of this children’s burial ground remains unknown.
Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy
Date of upload: 13 September 2019
References
Aldridge, R.B. 1969 Notes on children's burial grounds in Mayo. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 99, 83-87.