County: Offaly Site name: DURROW DEMESNE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Raghnall O Floinn, National Museum of Ireland
Site type: Graveyard
Period/Dating: Medieval (AD 400-AD 1600)
ITM: E 632243m, N 730627m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.324921, -7.516001
Levelling of a low knoll, originally enclosed by a bank, 150m in diameter, revealed the presence of a series of extended skeletons. Seven were completely excavated and included adults and children of both sexes. All were in pits orientated east-west with the head to the west. There was evidence of successive burial and perhaps also of burial in rows. No finds were made. Human bones also occurred in another knoll some 200m to the north.
In the same field, ploughing revealed a semi-circular double bank and ditch roughly 500m in diameter and enclosing the standing remains of the monastery of Durrow. The eastern edge of this enclosure is aligned with the base of a high cross confirming that this represents the vallum of the monastery.
