Burial mound

The National Monuments Service's description

Possible cemetery mound that is located at a gravel quarry owned by Banagher Concrete Ltd. near Kilmochonna church and graveyard (OF029-012001/002-). Human bone was discovered on the Northern edge of the quarry on October 1st 1997. A small hillock measuirng 40m E-W into which human burials had been inserted. Some of these burials had been disturbed during destruction of part of this hillock, of which unfortunately only about 20m stripped of topsoil and the gravel surface exposed, still remains. The northern side of the hillock remains substantially intact, because except where the access road has exposed a section-face, it is located in a grassed field adjoining the quarry. The lower portion of an in situ human burial is visible in the exposed section-face, the remainder of the skeleton is undisturbed. This extended supine burial is oriented E-W with the head to W, is lying in fine sand beneath a 40cm layer of gravelly top-soil which is in turn covered with spoil from the 1995 construction of an access road. At the eastern end of the burial there is possible evidence of a grave-cut, and at the western end, roughly beneath the area of the head there is an organic layer 1.5 cm thick which might indicate the presence of a plank or bier beneath the body (O'Brien unpublished report 1997).

The above description is derived from the published 'Archaeological Inventory of County Offaly' (Dublin: Stationery Office, 1997). In certain instances the entries have been revised and updated in the light of recent research.

Date of upload: 23 May 2011