Kenyon Street Graveyard gets major clean-up
A cemetery in the heart of Nenagh is currently being transformed due to the work of a voluntary committee whose clean-up is literally uncovering interesting stories on the history of the town.
Years of thick ivy growth has been stripped from the walls of Kenyon Street Graveyard. Thick grass growth has been tamed to a manicured lawn. Weed-strewn graves are getting a whole new and attractive look with gravel and colourful stone chippings, and weather beaten, faded inscriptions of centuries-old gravestones are being polished up and made legible again, revealing glimpses into the lives of those who inhabitated Nenagh long ago and who now rest in the cemetery.
To walk around and read the gravestones is a journey back in time to meet the people who once walked the streets of the town, farmed the surrounding countryside and fought and died in world wars and other conflicts.
A QUIET HAVEN
It may be just a graveyard, but it's also a very interesting place to visit for locals and tourists alike. In the bustle of the town centre, it's a quiet haven and a refuge from the noise of everyday urban life - a journey into the restful and silent world of the dear departed.
The ongoing improvement works are continuing at such a fervent pace that the cemetery will be looking even more impressive by next Wednesday, July 22nd, when a Rememberance Mass is celebrated on the site at 8pm for every soul that lies within.
The Chairman of the re-formed Kenyon Street Graveyard Committee is Gerry Mithcell who said his friend Tom Ray was the inspiration for the wonderful facelift now well underway in the cemetery.
"Tom was doing his best to do a bit of work himself and he just cajoled some more of us to get involved," said Gerry, who also paid tribute to members of Nenagh Tidy Towns group for their ongoing help with the works.
ENCOURAGEMENT
"The local councillors of the Nenagh Municipal District also gave us lots encouragement, and we are especially grateful to the Town Foreman Seamus O' Brien and his staff for their courtesy and hard work in contributing to the project and all our volunteers.
Quite a lot of research on the graveyard has been conducted by local historian, Nancy Murphy, who in 1982 documented all the gravestone inscriptions on behalf of the Nenagh Ormond Historical Society.
In her paper Nancy says the graveyard, previously known as Barrack Street Graveyard, is distinguished by a fine square-stone bell-tower, which is situated just to the left of the entrance gates of the cemetery.
BELL-TOWER
A pointer to the antiquity of the site is the fact that one of the stones of the bell-tower has the date 1700 inscribed on it. "There is documentary evidence that there was a church here in 'a partly ruinous state' in 1615," writes Nancy in her paper.
She adds that a new church, incorporating the bell-tower, was built in 1809. This was the Church of Ireland place of worship up to the time that the existing Saint Mary's in Church Road was built in 1860. Nancy says that the old Kenyon Street building was then dismantled, except for the small section that stands to this day.
In her detailed study, Nancy lists quite a few gravestones dating from the 18th century. The oldest she discovered was a flat ground slab with a date of 1753 on it. Some of the inscriptions on the gravestones and altar tombs are so weather beaten that they have almost completely worn away. But Nancy points out that the cemetery has quite a number of polished slate slabs, "some with beautiful lettering, and these have withstood the elements remarkably well."
FINAL RESTING PLACE
She informs her readers that a number of graves are the final resting places of some eminent people who used to live in Nenagh in decades and centuries past. Among them is John Kempston, the founder of The Nenagh Guardian; All Ireland Handball Champions, Ned and Joe Hassett; O' Neill Quin, the first Medical Officer of the former County Gaol; the town's landlord, Peter Holmes and Town Clerk, Sean T. O' Neill.
Martin Langton, the Treasurer of Nenagh Tidy Towns, said his group were only too glad to give their voluntary input into the improvement works.
"Many of the graves still have family and relations and friends who are living and who are able to tend them. But there are also many other graves with nobody to tend them, so were are very happy to do that," said Martin.
Both Gerry and Martin say it would be great if at some time in the future a roof could be placed on the part of the church ruins that still remains at the entrance to the graveyard.
As a former soldier with the Irish Defence Forces himself, Gerry points out that there are several graves containing the remains of young men from Nenagh who went off to fight for Britain in the First World War.
"I have come across five to six graves of these young soldiers who just left Nenagh for a bit of adveture and joined the British Army and died on the battlefield and are now buried here alone," said Gerry, who pointed out that their graves are distinguishable by their small uniform grey headstones, erected by the British Legion.
The committee has issued an open invitation for anyone to attend the Rememberance Mass next Wednesday evening where they will see for themselves the fine work that is being done.