2025:581 - Churchtown, Cork

Conservation works were carried out on the walls of Churchtown graveyard in 2025 under Ministerial Consent C001479, funded through the Community Monuments Fund. A short section of the west wall was rebuilt, and a vertical fracture to the east wall was repaired. Along the south side, where ground level inside the graveyard was 1.2m higher than on the outside, a section of the wall had collapsed, and soil had slumped out.

Collapsed masonry was sorted and stacked and slumped soil was examined for the presence of bone. A small quantity of fragmented human bone was recovered from the slumped soil, and a further small quantity was recovered from the in situ exposed soil bank. The fragmented bone was recovered at a high level, close to the graveyard surface, suggesting it had been dumped there during grave-digging operations. The bone was retained and bagged, and was subsequently replaced behind the rebuilt wall and covered with the collapsed soil.