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.
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.”
I came across this old graveyard by accident, in in 2021, and unfortunately I only had a very small camera [Sony RX0] which meant that it was not really possible to capture any inscriptions or details. This time I had a Canon 5D Mk3 but most of the inscriptions were unreadable which was a bit disappointing.
Today I experimented hoping to produce images that differed in style from what I normally publish online. I used a Canon 1Ds MkIII which is about 15 years old and I used a Voigtlander 40mm f/2.0 Ultron SL II Aspherical Lens. https://dustinabbott.net/2017/05/voigtlander-ultron-40mm-f2-sl-ii-review/
I underexposed and then processed the images through DX0 PureRAW in order to reduce noise. The resulting files were then processed using Adobe Lightroom Classic.
The name of the cemetery comes from an estate established there by the Reverend Stephen Jerome, who in 1639 was vicar of St. Kevin’s Parish. At that time, Harold’s Cross was part of St. Kevin’s Parish. In the latter half of the 17th century, the land passed into the ownership of the Earl of Meath, who in turn leased plots to prominent Dublin families.
A house, Mount Jerome House, was constructed in one of these plots, and leased to John Keogh. In 1834, after an aborted attempt to set up a cemetery in the Phoenix Park, the General Cemetery Company of Dublin bought the Mount Jerome property, “for establishing a general cemetery in the neighbourhood of the city of Dublin”.
The first official burial happened on the 19th of September 1836. The buried deceased were the infant twins of Matthew Pollock.
The cemetery initially started with a landmass of 26 acres and grew to a size of 48 acres in 1874.
In 1984, burial numbers were falling, thus the Cemetery was losing revenue and began to deteriorate. A crematorium was needed to regain revenue and deal with plant overgrowth on the estate.
The Funerary Chapel in the cemetery was the first Puginian Gothic church in Dublin. It was designed by William Atkins.
In 2000, Mount Jerome Cemetery established its own crematorium on the site.
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