I've taken the liberty to extract and condense from various web and news postings this summery, but the web links, including a video are below. Has anyone tried this in Ireland? Please let us know, but I can imagine some parish priests and a certain Archbishop looking out over "their" graveyard seeing this take place! Here is a useful, but unorthodox method when searching for the location of unmarked graves. "Grave dowsing" or "Grave divining" or "Grave witching" has even been called "Dousing for the Dead". It is the art of locating a body with a pair of metal rods which react when they come near a body. Using simple handheld sensors, certain charmed individuals can detect subterranean elements. It is similar to oil witching and water-witching or dousing which was once widely used to search for water. It is a bit of classic American folk juju and you may have seen it depicted in an old movie or TV show. But dousing for the dead hopefully will turn up something other than water: a body! There is nothing scientific about it but it is mysterious and weird, but not paranormal. Those who have done it believe it, but most are not sure why it works. The only supernatural element is that it lacks a logical explanation. Using two thin metal "Dowsing rods" that you can make at home with heavy wires or welding rods; coat hangers have even worked and copper or aluminum seem more sensitive. Each rod or wire is about 2 or 3 feet long with a 6-inch handle that you bend at one end of the rod at a right angle making each rod look a little bit like the letter "L." Carefully hold your dowsing rods with the handle end of the rod in each hand, and stretch out your arms pointing the wires ahead of you like pistols. Hold the two rods out straight in front, parallel to each other, level and about one foot apart. Be sure not to grip too tightly to the rods and hold them firmly below the bend. Next, walk slowly over the area you think a grave may be located. When the rods come in "contact" with a buried body, they react, usually by crossing with each other if there is a burial below. Some people even had the rods do odd things like turn completely around and point over their shoulders; both rods turn one way or the other instead of crossing, and things like that. There's supposed to be a way to determine if your body is male or female by how the rods react, but none of us knew just what that was. And if a body is more than 100-150 years old, the reaction of the rods might not be as strong as with a more recent burial. http://wlgsgenealogy.blogspot.com/2008/04/dousing-for-dead.html http://www.woodwardnews.net/homepage/local_story_119101145.html http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=1998 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPc73s6MUsY best regards, Ed Madden Ridgefield, WA