A Lahinch county councillor has claimed that Clare County Council employees are “roaming” around North Clare, checking if graves are the required depth, which Councillor Bill Slattery has heard should now be eight-foot deep. Councillor Slattery has challenged the local authority to dig 10 eight-foot graves in Lahinch, where he says the rock formation mitigate against deep graves. “In recent times, a person was being buried and somebody came out and told them the coffin wasn’t down far enough,” Councillor Slattery claimed. “Was it someone from the council?” director of services, Ann Haugh asked. “I believe so. They couldn’t go down any further because they had met rock. They were down five-foot-nine and he said ‘ye better go down to eight foot. Those are the new guidelines.’ This was the morning of the funeral. The graveyards around here are all rock. Are there new EU guidelines or guidelines from the Department of Environment, as regards new requirements for burial grounds, …
Read More »Mixed traditions in Burren burials
EXCAVATIONS at Caherconnell are revealing some interesting practices undertaken by Ireland’s early Christians, according to Dr Michelle Comber, director of The Caherconnell Archaeological Field School at Carron. “It is traditionally accepted that Christianity arrived in Ireland some time before the middle of the fifth century AD. You might be forgiven, then, for assuming that Christianity and Christian practices could be found throughout Ireland within a century or two of this date,” she said revealing that recent excavations by the Caherconnell Archaeology Field School are proving otherwise. “It was discovered in the summer of 2013 that Caherconnell cashel or ‘caher’ (a circular drystone enclosure containing dwelling houses and other domestic structures) had been deliberately constructed over the top of an earlier burial mound. This small mound covered two limestone cists. Although disturbed at one end, their contents were still present. The smaller of the two cists contained the remains of a young child, between one and two years of age, and …
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