County: Limerick Site name: Blackabbey, Co. Limerick
Sites and Monuments Record No.: SMR LI021-032019 Licence number: —
Author: —
Site type: Graves of indeterminate date
Period/Dating: —
ITM: E 546521m, N 646261m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 52.565029, -8.788807
In September 1995, human remains were discovered on the grounds of the convent school of the Holy Trinity Church at Blackabbey townland, Adare, Co. Limerick.163 The school was undergoing renovation, which involved the removal of the flagstone surface of the yard. The remains were found immediately beneath the surface of the yard in a shallow pit measuring approximately 1m square. The surrounding soil is described as yellow clay. The site was reported to the National Museum and was visited on its behalf by Larry Walsh, curator of Limerick Museum. According to Walsh, the medieval Trinitarian abbey was restored by the earl of Dunraven in 1811 and enlarged in 1852.164 Another portion of the abbey ruin was converted into a convent for the Sisters of Mercy in 1854, and in 1869 a chapel and infants’ school were added. According to Walsh, the bones were mainly limb bones and appeared to be redeposited burials, which had been disturbed by the mid-nineteenth-century building work. The remains were reinterred locally.
163. Parish of Adare, barony of Coshma. SMR LI021-032019—. IGR 146559 146215.
164. SMR LI021-032008-.
