years of age are buried; after that age bodies are taken to the parish graveyard at Killilagh. In Shanakill, on the Shannon bank opposite Scattery, it was believed that the dead were moved supernaturally under the river into the Sacred Isle.[1]
I know of a case in eastern Clare where parents, having lost several of their children, tried to break the deadly record by changing their burial place, but, alas! without success.
I am not aware of any belief in Clare that the spirit of the lastcomer in a graveyard has to watch the place or to bring water to the souls in Purgatory. There was, however, recently a race between two funerals to Rathblamac graveyard, which may imply some such belief. The custom of burying a stone from a church or an ancient tombstone in a new grave, (which has led to the disappearance of several early monuments at Clonmacnoise), prevails at Tomgraney, two ancient tombstones having recently been recovered on digging new graves. As we have already seen,[2] St. Mochulla's well avenged the encroachment of its landlord on the killeen beside it, but the graveyards of Kildimo, near Kilkee, and St. Catherine's at Kells, near Corofin, are under cultivation. Dr. MacNamara noted a curious allusion to the last-named in O'Daly's fierce satire on "The Tribes of Ireland" in 1610. The people of Kells are there reproached for "digging the churchyard in the snow." The oldest Irish Law Code, the Seanchus Mór, has a clause against digging in a churchyard or breaking bones there. Kildimo was levelled, and its site included in an orchard by 1816.[3] Interference with human remains is deeply and dangerously resented, yet spells are sometimes worked with them.[4] The stealing of a dead man's hand for a butter charm is said to have taken place near Kilkee,[5] and the bones of a Franciscan with the brown cloth of his gown still adhering, found during the repairs at Ennis Abbey, were nearly all taken, but probably from most reverential motives.
- ↑ Dublin University Magazine, vol. xviii. (1841), p. 345.
- ↑ "Vol. xxii., p. 211.
- ↑ W. G. Mason, A Statistical Account etc., vol. ii., p. 434.
- ↑ See Burial and Skull Beliefs, vol. xxii., pp. 55-6, 456.
- ↑ Vol. xxii., p. 340.
son of oak tree. There is a Knockaunatinnagh (little hill of the foxes) beside his church.
