A long-anticipated visit to Grangewilliam, near Maynooth (Co. Kildare)

After I started working at Maynooth University, I soon became obsessed with this small graveyard I could see accross the Royal Canal when cycling along it to work. You must have spotted it if you ever took the train from Dublin to Maynooth. It stands right next to the tracks, almost exactly opposite the entrance to Carton House Golf Course.

So last week, we finally decided to go. We cycled over the bridge, and then assumed we had to reach the next left turn and would find a footpath off that road to lead us to the graveyard. But the next left turn was actually a private road and closed at the gates, Grangewilliam is not so easily acccessible to the undeserving! We went back towards the bridge to look for another way, and it turns out there is simply a walkway accross the meadow the graveyard is in, and then you can enter through a tiny metal stairway to the right of the wall.

Once you have proven yourself worthy of entering it, Grangewilliam is everything a typical Irish graveyard is supposed to be, with its overgrown ivy cover (by the way you might want to avoid sandals to walk it)...

ruined old church...

and celtic crosses.

And you can enjoy it all on your own!

Wikipedia told me Grangewilliam was originally a monastic settlement, and the ruined walls are those of the 14th century chapel. The oldest (readable) tombstone we found was erected by the Duke of Leinster for his gardener, Patrick Allen, who died in August 1778:

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Putting on my historian/art-historian/observer-of-Irish-customs glasses, I was particularly interested in three memorials. The first one I actually noticed just as we were leaving. It is an extremely simple cross, not the type to attract much attention, but in its centre is a fading relief medallion of Christ's face:

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Despite its charmingly unkempt aspect, the graveyard is not utterly abandoned, and there are more recent graves in it. Among them this fascinating slab erected in the early 21st century to honour a whole family, from the great-grand-parents to the mother:

Meta Horgan's family cannot have known all the ancestors mentioned on the slab (some of whom they don't even know when they died), yet they felt the need to dedicate them their "loving memory" and reunite them beyond death, and even beyond different burial grounds (Sutton Cemetery is now on my list of places to visit), almost like the erection of this slab was a way to inform the rest of the family of where Meta was buried. This shows the importance of lineage and continuity in death, a trait shared by many cultures, but also the Irish all-important sense of place.

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One element that is particularly striking to me as a foreigner is the material relationship many Irish people maintain with their dead relatives, with an array of symbolic gifts left on graves (toys on children's graves for example). That material culture of death is discreetly present in Grangewilliam, in a corner of the old chapel wall:

Almost hidden under the ivy leaves, with no plaque, no slab, no name (I am not even sure the person is actually buried there), someone left this inconspicuous memorial made of a lantern, Brigid's cross, and a picture - probably of the dead person being so remembered.

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Off the beaten track, Grangewilliam's quiet atmosphere is definitely worth a detour, and certainly holds many more unspotted treasures.