Ladychapel, Maynooth, impressive diversity in a remote rural graveyard.

As the sun slowly starts to shine over Ireland again after a wet February, I'd like to take you back to that early August weekend when the sky was so incredibly blue there was not a single cloud in view. A sight that is exceptional enough for me to share this not-actually-Ladychapel picture. This is Taghadoe church and roundtower, also in Maynooth (I can't believe the amount of graveyards and cemeteries this small town has) and on our way cycling to Ladychapel from Celbridge. We made a quick visit, but it really is a tiny graveyard with hardly a dozen stones, most of them unreadable.

---

After leaving Ladychapel church to our right and crossing a road, a tiny sign was telling us to turn left for the Cemetery. There it was, at the end of a small way populated with 6 or 7 houses. The actual graveyard is literally between the gardens of two of these houses, and while we were visiting we could hear people in the garden behind the hedge, enjoying the sunshine. These pictures were

taken from the top of the steps leading into the cemetery. It is interestingly funny how it simultaneously feels positive and sort of weird that people would build houses so close to a graveyard in an area with plenty of space to go further away. Also, look at this big fella. He seemed very interested in our presence at this place. I'm actually wondering if people still visit Ladychapel much, this was one of the rare occasions where we stayed for quite a while and did not come across anyone else visiting the tomb of a loved one.

---

Entering leads you into the usual, peaceful atmosphere of an Irish graveyard. And one for a visibly affluent community, as almost every single spot is marked with a gravestone (an a "proper" one, not a simple uncut stone as can be found in other graveyards). This affluence strikes me even more now that I've been to Connemara cemeteries, but that's a story for some other time. Immediately next to the East wall of the church is a large well with a stairway inside. According to Seamus Cullen's website, this is the holy well which was built in the Christian era on the spot of the original, pagan sacred spring, which explains how close to it the church was built. I was always amazed at the variety and diversity of holy wells in this country, but I never expected to see one with a direct stairway into the earth to the water.

---

The graveyard has an interesting layout, especially in the area of the church, which looks more recent than others, with two walls left standing at either end but no rubble and plenty of gravestones between them. The bell tower looks like it was added to the West wall at a later stage, and the East wall looks so well preserved I have to think it was probably re-built at some point.

---

Three stones are actually set in the East wall on the out side, which I don't remember seeing anywhere else (stones set in the walls are usually found within the churches). The proximity of the holy well might be an explanation for this, and probably makes this one of the choicest spots in the graveyard. The oldest of these stones was erected for Patrick Travers "and his posterity" in 1777. The visible traces of concrete around the stone tend to confirm my guess that the wall was probably re-built recently. The middle stone was erected by John Flinn, probably in the 1820s, in memory of his father Peter Flinn, his brothers Nicholas and Laughlin (no dates), and his sister Mary (died 1824). The last stone is particularly interesting, in that it memorialises the descendants of Patrick Travers, who had the first stone erected, and the text starts with a mention of the original Travers stone. The last person listed on the more recent stone was named Ellen and died in 1989 - possibly around the time the wall was rebuilt?

---

The original Travers stone bears this spiral symbol immediately after the text. It's a very small, unusual type of stone adornment, present on at least two other stones in Ladychapel cemetery.

Thomas Byrne had this stone erected in memory of his grand-father Denis who died in 1766 aged 96 (this is original, I don't think I've seen 18th century stones erected in memory of grand-parents before). Patrick Byrne, son of Thomas, is also buried there and died in 1772. Whether the stone was erected in 1766 or 1772, it was close enough to when the Travers stone was erected (1777) to assume it could have been cut by the same person. What first led me to think this is the presence of a similar (though smaller) spiral adornment, just after the mention of Denis Byrne's age, marking the transition to Patrick. Similar, more elaborate spirals also adorn the stone erected by Patrick Geoghran (see gallery below) for his wife Alice (died 1772) and his daughter Ann (date is barely visible but I'm reading 1760). Again, the stone was most probably cut in the 1770s, it bears very similar adornments. Another striking similarity between the Byrne and the Geoghran stones is the IHS pictogram, with an especially wide H, and a pointed arrow down the cross growing out of it. If you scroll back up to the original Travers stone, you'll notice the IHS pictogram also has the same pointed arrow, although the width of the H is slightly less striking than on the other stones.

---

This post is getting a bit longer than first planned, so I'll stop here for today and tell you more about other interesting IHS pictograms in a second post about Ladychapel. Just a goodbye present to keep you waiting: this fascinating broken old stone was put up and set in a concrete base to keep it standing. It was erected by Richard Ennis (I think I'm reading it right?), and clearly some descendant must still remember.