ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the introduction into Ireland in the 5th century of burial in long cists; the insertion in the 5th/6th century of small numbers of long cists and unprotected burials into prehistoric burial monuments; and in the 7th century the insertion of unprotected burials into similar monuments. The probable political rather than religious reasons for the continuation of this practice well into the Christian era is then examined and the motivation behind the abrupt cessation of the practice in the late 7th/early 8th century. Up to the end of the 7th or early 8th century, burial in Irish monastic cemeteries was reserved for clerics, patrons and high-ranking individuals, while the laity were generally buried in familial cemeteries which could contain both pagans and Christians. The 7th/8th century, which saw the emergence and consolidation in Ireland of new and powerful regional dynasties, coincided with the final phase of burial in ancestral boundary ferta.
