Carrig (Birr) book launched

A book entitled ‘Graveyards and Churches of Carrig and Lougheen’ went on sale this after 9.30am Mass in Carrig (Birr) on Sunday, November 21.

The project was inspired when a parishioner in Carrig, home on a visit to his native Clare, brought to people’s attention a project on graveyards that was published in his home parish some time ago.

Having seen the publication and being suitably impressed with what the team in Carrig saw and read, they decided there and then to research the possibility of doing a similar project in Carrig and Lougheen but to include the two churches, namely, the Church of the Annunciation and the Church of Ireland in Lougheen.

A committee of seven was formed and the project got under way with the difficult task of transcribing all the inscriptions from the old and new graveyards in Carrig and the graveyard surrounding the Church in Lougheen. Prior to 1950, when the old graveyard was opened in Carrig, burials took place in the Old Cemetery in Lougheen, next to the Church of Ireland church and further afield. In 1986, Denise Foulkes published a document which had c 141 inscriptions from headstones in this old graveyard. They have included these inscriptions in our book and the names of people registered there since 1986. Maps and aerial photos of the graveyards are also included. The committee embarked then on gathering photographs of those interred in the graveyards by making contact with as many of their loved ones as possible. The response was overwhelming.

BOOK YOUR COPY

The publication costs €15. It will be on sale in the Carrig Village Store and various outlets in Birr, Cloughjordan and Borrisokane. You can also order a copy from any of the following: Tony Dargan (087 2069342); Laura Smyth (087 6628473); Dermot Sullivan (087 9540528); Peter Whyte (086 0874841); Margaret O’Brien (087 1343108).