Grangemacomb Graveyard, Parish of Lisdowney, county Kilkenny

Carrigan (1904) states that the civil parish of Grangemacomb is in a union of three ancient parishes:- Ardaloo, Kilcoman and Grangemacomb.  Of these Ardaloo belonged to the Priory of Kells in Kilkenny, Kilcolman, also called Conahy, belonged to the Abbey of St Thomas, Dublin,  and Grangemacomb which consisted of the townlands of Grange, Lisduff and Oldtown, which belonged to the Abbey of Jerpoint in Kilkenny.
This is a tiny graveyard accessed via a farmer's operational farmyard and his pasture for animals.(Thank you to the farmer for kindly allowing us this access).  The graveyard, which has both Roman Catholic and Church of Ireland burials, is on private land and definitely not visible from the road. Crossing a field there is a walled enclosure and within is one wall, a west wall, of a ruined medieval church still standing. Carrigan records that more church ruins were standing as late as 1847 but the remaining walls were taken down to make way for a new vault for the Stannard-Lanigan family, the local landlord family.  Within the walled graveyard is a wonderful oval shaped private burial area for the Stannard-Lanigan family which is situated exactly where the east window and altar of the now demolished church would have stood.  This private burial area is surrounded by beautiful cast iron railings with an arched gate allowing access to this private area.  The iron railings are of extremely high quality and standard but they have not been painted for many, many years. Try as we could, we were totally unable to find any makers mark or signature on the railing. We suspect they were probably made in Dublin.

In all there were only 18 memorials visible. Memorials 1-7 are within the private burial area and relate to the Stannard-Lanigan family and its extended family members.  Memorial No 8, outside the railed enclosure is also erected to a member of the Stannard family.

A magnificent and very imposing coffin shaped memorial on three raised plinths over the Stannard-Lanigan burial vault, Note the huge clawed feet, complete with nails, which stand on the four corners supporting the memorial.  This particular memorial is to William Stannard (died 13th June 1855),  Ellen Stannard, his widow (died 12th Oct 1875) and Lt Col Henry Stannard (died 1st May 1904).

The Stannard-Lanigan family is of huge interest. This particular line of the Lanigan family buried in Grangemacomb,  assumed the name of Stannard sometime in the 18th century but had converted to the Church of Ireland prior to that earlier in the 18th century.  This Lanigan family is originally from Cloonygoose in county Tipperary which is close to the Kilkenny town of Callan and they appear in deeds and marriage licences as early as 1720s. They can be found around the Callan area in places such as Ballykeefe and the parish  of Kilmanagh.  At least two members of the Protestant line from Grangemacomb can be found as Freemen in the City of Waterford in the 18th century,  The Catholic line is also of great interest marrying into the Fogartys of Castle Fogarty in Tipperary and also into the Catholic family of Ryan of Inch, Tipperary. The Catholic lines were responsible for at least two parish priests and James Lanigan, Bishop Lanigan, the RC Bishop of Ossory from 1789-1812, an extremely erudite man. We have now acquired a great amount of material about these Lanigan families and are compiling detailed family trees.  Edward MacLysaght (former Chief Herald of Ireland) states that the name Lanigan is mainly to be found in county Kilkenny.  Lanigan can be spelt in a variety of ways:- Lannigan, Lenigan, Lanegane etc.,
We are grateful to Michael O'Dwyer, former Hon Librarian of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society for bringing to our attention a newspaper report  on the death and burial at Grangemacomb of Robert Stannard Esq.,(The Kilkenny Moderator January 31st 1894)

This is a small vernacular memorial probably carved by the father for his daughter. Note the spelling of DAGHTER and the uneven lettering and uncertain spelling.   The letters "y" have a wonderful flourish to them and curly tails. . The stone is broken in the top left hand corner, but the piece was lying on the ground nearby.  It reads "Here lyeth ye body of Antis Bergin  who depd (departed) July ye 5th 1754 aged 15 yers.  Daghter to John Bergin".  Note also the attempt at decoration on the stone with a fine crucifix within a sunburst or corona at the top,  and the addition of two faces on either side of the cross. Are these attempts at the faces of Antis and her father John Bergin?  Further down in the centre of the stone is a large skull but in addition there is another small skull complete with teeth under the date 1754. There is also a cross at the end of this line.  Here is a memorial carved with grieving affection for a young  daughter with the father putting on the stone absolutely everything he could think of to remember his child.  This is the oldest surviving memorial in the graveyard and might be described as "folk art".

Names appearing on the memorials 
Bancroft 7
Bergin 13
Bollard 16
Brennan 17
Dowdall 1, 2
Edie 2
Eyre 4
Gallwey 4
Healy 9
Keating 17
McGrath 18
Murphy 9. 10
Pena, 7
Phelan 14
Ready 15
Stannard 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8
Walsh 13, 14
Welch 15
Welsh 12

List of Places mentioned on the memorials
Ballydowall 5
Ballyragget 2, 5, 8,
Donoughmore 14
Eyre Court Castle 4
Galway, county 4
Grange 17
Kilkenny, county 5
The Grange 2

List of masons who signed their work
Gargan, Kilkenny 8

List of occupations, offices or ranks mentioned on the memorials
Captain 4
C.B. 1 (Companion of the Bath - a British Award)
Major 3
Lieut Col 5
Royal Engineers 4

Grangemacomb.  Now what exactly does this one say?.  Expert help from one of our canine graveyard explorers. And yes, believe it or not, we got the total inscription from this nineteenth century memorial.