’98 INCIDENT RECALLED

Leinster Leader 3 March 1906

’98 INCIDENT RECALLED

Some gruesome incidents of fateful ’98 are recalled by the find of seven skeletons in a remarkably good state of preservation near Kildare recently.

In that year of bloodshed some thousands of men laid down their arms at the noted gibbet-rath on the Curragh, but on honourable terms. Most of them were cruelly slaughtered immediately after, but 300 escaped, going in the direction of Kildare. They were over-taken at the cross-road leading to Brownstown and the Curragh from Kildare, and many were killed by the English soldiers.

It is at this particular spot that a couple of workmen who were making excavations where a house is to be built made recently the ghastly find.

Mr. Burby says the bones were there in position, the bodies having apparently been laid about four feet from each hedge and eight feet apart, and the teeth in each skeleton were preserved and very white. One had been laid in a L-shaped grave, having succumbed while in a sitting posture, another had hands joined together, as if killed in prayer, and the bones of the third were small apparently those of a young man.

The police were informed of the find, but taking no notice of it, the relieving officer of the district had the bones collected and put in boxes. There were then conveyed to the Grey Abbey for interment.     

Re-typed by Jill O’Connell