The Kilkenny Graveyard Blog

Bernie Kirwan and I have been working on recording graveyards in Kilkenny for some years.   We both have a deep interest in Kilkenny genealogy and family history; the information recorded on headstones is vitally useful in discovering more information about our ancestors.  It is not just the names and dates that are inscribed on memorials that are important.  Memorials and tombstones provide all kinds of other information if you give yourself time to discover it.   The size and position of the headstone is all important, often telling us about the family's status in society or where they thought they should be in that society, which is not necessarily the same thing.  The type of stone used and the carving will provide yet more information; for example has the headstone been carved professionally, with correct spelling and adequate spacing for letters on the stone? Who is recorded on the stone and who not?  For example the wives may not always be mentioned; does this mean they are buried elsewhere; perhaps sent back to their father's family grave plot?  There are reason why this might happen and don't assume that the wife mentioned on a headstone was necessarily the only wife - she may be a second or third wife.  A careful examination of the wording used on the stone may yield yet further information.   Long eulogies, often dismissed as unimportant or never transcribed, tell us information the person who erected the memorial wanted to impart; it may or may not be entirely accurate. Poetry and simple prayers inscribed on memorials or headstones can tell us about the educational standards of the erector and the surviving family and also reveal their emotions and how they wanted those emotions to be perceived by people viewing the memorial.  One long eulogy in the beautiful graveyard at Columcill, just outside Thomastown, ends with a verse from Alexander Pope although the poet is not acknowledged; this tells us that the person erecting this early 19th century Duigan memorial was reading books of poetry, perhaps from a circulating library or perhaps owning some books and popular literary magazines of the day. 

We collect details about the masons working in Kilkenny, their various styles and how ideas, designs and decorations have been copied from one graveyard to another and down the centuries.   We are interested too in the commemorative stained glass windows in churches, in  memorials made in the forges, in coffin rests, in killeens (the place of burial for unbaptised children and strangers to the parish), in roadside memorials which in Kilkenny date from the mid 17th century until the current day, in mausoleums; in short everything to do with burial traditions in the county.

We will look also at the history of the people buried in these graveyards. A large armorial plaque on the wall of the ruined nave at St Mary's Gowran, had puzzled us both.  The erudite Gerard Crotty, a specialist in Irish heraldry, on seeing the plaque immediately identified the armorial as representing O'Flaherty.  And what, we thought, was O'Flaherty doing in this far east in Kilkenny? Galway is O'Flaherty territory.    It was, of course an advantageous marriage, that had made an ancestor travel so far east.  Another mural stone, broken in two pieces with a large section missing almost solved the puzzle - both stones had obviously been moved and were separate from each other.  This second stone reads that here are deposited the remains of Thomas O'Flaherty, of noble ancestry, of unblemished honour, esteemed and respected, a lover of virtue and a friend of mankind.  Thomas died in 1778 aged 44 years.  Fine.  But there is a very interesting account of the murder of this Thomas O'Flaherty by his wife Susanna Bourke and their son's tutor Thomas Lonergan.   In this account Susanna is described as having "no charm of appearance or address and of being indescribably repulsive in manners".  The details of the marriage contract must have been very advantageous for Thomas O'Flaherty to take on the said Susanna. (See an article on Castlefield House by Caroline Corballis in  In the Shadow of the Steeple. 5. 1996). A very detailed account of the trial and execution of  Lonergan can be found online in The Hibernian Magazine (1781), pages 593-600 which includes all the names of the witnesses at the trial, including the servants in the house..  According to this report Thomas O'Flaherty died of arsenic poisoning on 28th June 1778.    So here we have the story behind the impressive memorial; no doubt whoever erected the memorial only wanted the attributes of unblemished honour, esteem and respect to be remembered about Thomas O'Flaherty but sometimes a little research can turn up the true story.