Village of the Dead

While searching for Elton’s hermitage in the hills above Tralee Bay I came across Kilgobbin where his brother Gobbin had lived. The two places are only a few kilometres apart but very different.

Traces of Elton’s community can still be found behind the hillside ‘Famine Village’ but the only trace of his brother is in a name and a comparatively modern graveyard.

However, while Killelton gradually disappeared into the undergrowth Kilgobbin, despite being on the coast, somehow survived Viking raids to become the parish church of the local Protestant community.  

Today all there is to see are a locked church, built on 1824, and a crowded graveyard.  I walked around the graves noting the unique (to me) burial monuments, build like cottages.  I had come across similar ones in different parts of West Kerry and wrote about them last year.

Seeing those ’cottage graves’ again In Kilgobbin made me want to know more about the tradition of burying people in replicas of their house. Did the practice go back to earliest times or was it a more recent trend? If so, from where did it come?   

I asked a Kerry friend but he had trouble understanding my interest.  He took such tombs for granted, they are not unusual in West Kerry.

The only suggestion I got was from AI who informed me that, ‘In Kerry some burial sites feature grave markers shaped like houses, particularly in Kilgobbin graveyard’!

It went on to say, ‘These house-shaped tombs represent a vernacular style that emulates earlier forms, notably those from the Early Christian period.’ This sounds like a guess (is AI allowed to guess?)  ‘Vernacular style’ means reflecting the specific needs and culture of a region.

I found a Kerry County Council report on a nearby graveyard that stated, ‘House-shaped and strong-box tombs are the dominant tomb types (in this graveyard) with many of them in the 19th century era built in contiguous rows of terraced houses of the dead.’

From their condition it would seem the tombs were built in or after the 19^th century but what inspired them? Are they a variation of the megalithic tomb tradition so common in Kerry? Their shape and construction are so different it is difficult to see a connection. 

If you have any information on them please let me know. In the meantime, if you are in the vicinity, visit Kilgobbin Church. Besides viewing the tombs, it is a good place to park while walking or swimming on the long sandy shore