placenamesMayo
Maigh Eo
Excavation for a water scheme revealed successive burial grounds and traces of everyday medieval activity.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Maigh Eo · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Mayo · English · main form
Place & story
The earlier cemetery
A water-scheme trench through Mayo Abbey village exposed burials beyond the present graveyard in 2009. One skeleton in the cemetery area produced a radiocarbon date between the seventh and ninth centuries. The excavator connected this early burial ground with the monastic foundation. [2]
A later extension
Six individual graves in another section lay east–west without cutting into one another, suggesting an organised burial area. One burial dated to the eleventh or twelfth century. These graves stood outside today's graveyard wall but inside the monastic enclosure. The report interprets them as a possible planned extension of the abbey cemetery. [2]
Hearth refuse and lime burning
The same narrow pipeline trench revealed ditches, pits and wall foundations. Radiocarbon samples dated a northern pit and ditch to the medieval period; their charred contents suggested the disposal of household and hearth waste. Elsewhere a limekiln and lime-bearing ditch survived. Possible building foundations near the abbey were left unexcavated to preserve them. [2]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Mayo. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- 2009:AD15, Mayo Abbey, licence08E1013 · Ross MacLeod, Headland Archaeology, Excavations.ie
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.