St Beacon's at Mullinavat

St Beacons's graveyard at Mullinavat presented quite a challenge to us. It had never before been recorded and the size of the graveyard was a daunting prospect for just two people.   It has upwards of 500 memorials and for ease of work we divided the graveyard into ten sections; this includes the memorials inside the church.   We have in fact managed to survey the entire graveyard but Covid and related restrictions have prevented us from double checking our work, something we must do before preparing the indexes and mapping.  We hope to get back to completing this work shortly.  But we do know what is there and can help you out if you are looking for a specific grave, even if at this stage we can't publish the work.

 

Mullinavat is the chief town of the Walsh Mountains in south Kilkenny.   St. Beacon's church in the Diocese of Ossory, was re-built in 1890 by Rev James Raftice PP and incorporated an earlier church which had been built on the site in 1805.   This earlier church was built during the pastoral charge of the Rev Peter Marum, PP of Kilmacow and Mullinavat.  It, and the graveyard that surrounds the church, stand on the townland of Garrandarragh.   We have also surveyed the older and smaller burial ground across the road at Kilbeacon; this has 42 memorials. these memorials in Kilbeacon are mainly catholic but there are a few protestant memorials, since once a protestant church stood on this site.  Many of these stones date from the mid 18th century with one bearing the date of 1701.  Unbaptised children were buried at the bottom of the Mullinavat chapel yard according to information given to the Irish Folklore Commission in 1937/38.

All the spelling are as we have found them on the memorials.  Spelling of names and places can sometimes be very erratic but we always copy exactly what we find on the memorials.  For example  there are six different spellings for Clonassay, Clonasy, Clonassy, Clonnassay, Clonnassey and Cloonesy.  Listrolin can be spelt as Listolan and on one very early stone dated 1820 appears as Lisbroling.

There are some very old an important families buried in these two graveyards and we have made a study of some of these families, trying to sort out precise relationships, beyond what can be found on the memorials.  Alice Walsh who died in 1884 aged 91years was the youngest surviving daughter of William Walsh (died 1794) of Ballylusky and Earlsrath and his wife Mary Fielding (died 1847), known as the widow Walsh.  Alice Walsh is constantly referred to as a near relation of Margaret Aylward, the foundress of the Holy Faith Order of Nuns.  Margaret Aylward was a daughter of William Aylward of Waterford, a wealthy bacon merchant involved in the Newfoundland trade.   William's sister Mary Aylward had married a Mr Walsh of Earlsrath; this is possibly the John Walsh who married a Mary Aylward at Trinity Within in Waterford on 20th October 1802.  Trinity Within was a church actively supported by William Aylward the bacon merchant.   William Aylward's traditional family burial place was at Kilbeacon.  There are several Aylward memorials in Kilbeacon and a very impressive memorial to William Walsh of Ballylusky and Earlsrath, his wife Mary Fielding and his family.

John Carroll of Earlsrath is another former resident of Mullinavat with links to both to Margaret Aylward and to Alice Walsh (died  1884).   John Carroll was a tenant's right leader but also somewhat eccentric.   He was born in 1809, the only son of Michael Carroll of Seskin Boyce, Lisdowney, and Bridget Walsh, one of the daughters of William Walsh and Mary Fielding.  Sadly Michael Carroll died unexpectedly aged 20 yrs on 9th February 1809.  There is a memorial erected to him in Barony graveyard, Lisdowney which has an extensive eulogy. The eulogy mentions his tender parents who were both obviously alive and his grieving widow but there is no mention of an orphaned babe-in-arms so John Carroll must have been born after his father's death.  These Carrolls of Seskin Boyce are of the house of Cullenwain, Kings county and of Leap Castle and were eminent old Irish gentry of the Princes of Eile O'Carroll stock.  At least three of his uncles died in America and five cousins also left for Illinios, some participating in the Indian wars there.  We are in touch with one of the descendants of John Carroll's relations in America.   

Alice Walsh (died 1884) gave £1000 to establish one of Margaret Aylward's Holy Faith convents at Mullinavat and John Walsh gave lands at Earlsrath where it could be erected.

Mullinavat is fortunate to have at least three separate collections of materials for furthering the study of local and family history.  The Mullinavat section of the Irish Folklore Commission Project done in 1937/38 gathered data and information from the local people about traditions, stories and people in the area.  Interestingly for us there is information about burial and funeral traditions in Mullinavat.  We have also recorded the names of all those who collected the information and also those who contributed information.  

The Poole Photographic Collection held in the National Library has 430 photographs in its collection of people who commissioned photographs with Mullinavat addresses between 1885 to the mid 1950s.  Most of these photographs date from the 1890s - 1930s and are portraits, cartes-de-visite, cabinet photographs, group photos or memorial cards.  A.H. Poole was a photographer who operated in Waterford. This is a wonderful resource for Mullinavat residents.

A rubbling from the memorial to James Scurry (1790 -1828) Irish language scholar. Note the Passion symbols - cross, spear, sponge, coat, 30 pieces of silver, pincers, hammer, nails, flail and crowing cock 

Finally we have included a study of about 85 former residents of Mullinavat who enlisted for military service during the 19th century. These records are held by the National Archives at Kew, London or at the National Army Museum.  The earliest record we found was for a Patrick Brien, born in 1784 in Mullinavat, who enlisted in 1805 for the Royal Marines; he later transferred to the Royal Artillery. Many of these records are useful as they predate any existing parish records or civil registration.    The history of these young men has been forgotten and perhaps their families are no longer represented, but they once did live here and walked around within the parish boundaries.   The range of exotic places they served in includes Afghanistan, Ceylon, Canada, China, Gibraltar, India, Malta, the Mediterranean, North America, South Africa and Turkey.  All these men were listed as Roman Catholics. bar one.   This is perhaps a surprising set of records but we used the "lockdown" as an opportunity to explore other ways of moving forward our research on Mullinavat, even though these soldiers may not be buried in Mullinavat. 

Hopefully it will not be too long before we can index the whole of the graveyard at Mullinavat and complete the mapping.   Thank you for your patience!