Places

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Corcomroe Abbey is an early 13th century Cistercian foundation nestled at the head of a south west facing valley in the northern portion of the Burren in Co. Clare. On a recent family camping trip to Fanore we stopped off at the Abbey for a look around and were rewarded by a beautifully presented and partly re-roofed ruin. A well tended graveyard with some modern graves, surround the ruin to the south and east. The interior of the Abbey is also covered in memorial stones some dating to the late 17th century.

The dedication of the Abbey is to St Mary of the fertile rock which could really be a description of the Burren as a whole; a place noted for its barren rocky moonlike appearance but also for the richness and diversity of the flora.  Read more »

In the porch of St Peters Church in Ennisnag (http://www.historicgraves.ie/graveyard/st-peters/kk-spen) is a 13th century graveslab which is inscribed Johannes Filius Galfridi (John Fitz Geoffry). The slab was situated in the eastern portion of the graveyard and was relocated to the porch some time after 1952.
The lovely little booklet 'St. Peters Church, Ennisnag', produced by the local community, tells us that Johannes may be the son of Geoffrey who founded the Priory of Kells in 1193. Note the hairstyle and look out for a photograph which we will publish next week which shows the skill of the stonecarve.

Just in from a great day spent with the Lisdowney historic graveyard group. We ran a training workshop in Barony graveyard for the Kilkenny Leader Partnership and in collaboration with Kilkenny County Council Heritage officer (see their innovative historic graveyard mapping system here). One of our key tools for the first day of a survey is Geosetter, which we use to check the accuracy of the gps camera. Here we can see that 32 of the 34 photographs taken are plotting within the graveyard but you can't see two errant readings which are over a field away. Test plotting in the field allows such errant readings to be corrected, on the fly. Read more »

The British Cemetery in very accessible in Funchal town centre and should be on every tourist's itinerary if they have any interest in history. Over ten different nationalities are represented in the two sections of the cemetery as Funchal was a key node in global trade networks.

This video was recorded and edited using an Apple iPod Touch.