ST. JOHN’S GRAVEYARD DUBLIN ROAD KILKENNY – OLD CHURCHYARD
This old churchyard is known as St. John’s and it is located on Dublin Road not far from Kilkenny railway station. I visited this graveyard a number of times in the past but the weather has always been bad and the light was usually poor. This year things were much better however my camera-lens combination was giving problems.
The colour of the gravestones is different to what I normally see in Irish graveyards [orange/brown rather than grey/white ].
The graveyard is very open and there many signs of anti-social behaviour but on balance I would guess that much of the decline and decay of the graves is natural rather than as a result of vandalism. In some cases the collapse of gravestones and monuments may be as a result of poor workmanship or poor quality materials. I suppose the dead are not in a position to complain.
Is is described as being “a picturesque graveyard forming an appealing feature in the streetscape on the road leading out of Kilkenny to the south-east. Having origins in a fourteenth-century leper hospital the grounds are of special significance as the location of a seventeenth-century Catholic chapel, thereby representing an early ecclesiastical site in the locality: furthermore it is believed that fragments survive spanning the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, thereby emphasising the archaeological importance of the site. The graveyard remains of additional importance for the associations with a number of Kilkenny’s foremost dignitaries or personalities while a collection of cut-stone markers displaying expert stone masonry identify the considerable artistic design.”
Here is an interesting inscription: “Erected to the memory of John Haltigan by the Nationalists of Kilkenny 94 who have known him to make a lifelong struggle for Ireland’s freedom for which crime British law, aided by the Informer, Nagle, consigned him to a living tomb where the fiendish torture of years shattered his vigorous form but failed to subdue his noble spirit. May his unselfish patriotism be imitated until Ireland is once again a Nation. He died 10th July, 1884 aged 66 years. Also his wife, Catherine Haltigan, died 19th January, 1899 aged 83 years.”
A picturesque graveyard containing a collection of markers of artistic design significance exhibiting high quality stone masonry. A number of markers dating to the late seventeenth century represent an important element of the archaeological heritage of Kilkenny while serving as a reminder of the mass house, later a Catholic chapel that existed on site until the late eighteenth century.
I came across this by accident and unfortunately I only had a very small camera [Sony RX0] which meant that it was not really possible to capture any inscriptions. I will revisit the next time I am in Kilkenny.
The cemetery is on the South side of the town. There are 4 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-1918 war here.
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