The earliest gravestone unearthed within the city walls dates from the 13th century and contains a plea for prayer to transport a man’s soul out of purgatory written in Norman French.
A major survey of the 28 cemeteries and graveyards of Galway City has so far forensically documented the graves in five – Old Rahoon, Menlo, The Dominican in the Claddagh, St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church and Roscam Graveyards.
The survey will be one of the subjects up for discussion at this year’s seventh annual Galway City Heritage Conference, a free event open to the public that is taking place on Saturday, June 24 in the Harbour Hotel where archaeology, cartography and art history at home and abroad will be explored.
So far the earliest gravestone unearthed by the survey across the city boundaries after six years dates back to between the eighth and the tenth century at Roscam.
Galway City Heritage Officer Dr Jim Higgins said while no name exists on the grave, the style of the cross dates it as early Christian.
Within the old city walls, the burial place of Adam Bury is believed to the location of the oldest known gravestone.
“The inscription asks for a prayer for his soul. It says there’s so many pardons given, it refers to the idea of purgatory, requiring people to say a certain amount of prayers to relieve his time in purgatory. He was a descendant of the Anglo Normans, it doesn’t say anything about him, rather it was more concerned about asking for his soul to be saved,” explained Jim.
Elsewhere the survey has uncovered some fascinating inscriptions – they will all eventually form part of an extensive online record of gravestones in each of the 28 graveyards. It will prove an invaluable resource to people researching family and local history.
“There’s a one in St Nicholas about a boy who died in the 1820s when a carriage rolled over him when he was playing one of these spinning tops,” recalls Jim.
“There are hundreds of examples of symbols denoting the trade of a person – that’s unusual on a national level, it was only in County Galway, parts of Sligo and Roscommon you get that. A shepherd’s crook denotes a shepherd, a bottle denotes feeding lambs that were orphaned; in the old graveyard in Rahoon there is the symbol of keys, denoting a locksmith, and a picture of a hammer and an anvil to show a blacksmith in Forthill.”
The project is being funded by Galway City Council and the Heritage Council, with the support of Irish Historic Graves.
Among the most spectacular graves to visit is the one given by the Blake family in Menlo, while the cemetery in Bohermore has quite the wow factor.
Here are buried Lady Augusta Gregory, poet Pádraic Ó Conaire and William Joyce, who was known as Lord Haw Haw for his broadcasts during the second world war on behalf of the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda.
Also well worth visiting for its fantastic vaults and box tombs in Forthill Cemetery on Lough Atalia Road.
When each gravestone inscription is published online, a leaflet of each graveyard will be produced.
”We’ll reprint them in a book so people can have the plan of each graveyard and each of the monuments will be numbers so you can go onto your computer and see every inscription.”
Up to 200 people attend the annual heritage conference in Galway.
This year there is a particularly impressive menu of speakers. Among them the internationally renowned archaeologist Dr Seamus Caulfield, who is the leading authority on the Neolithic Stone Age Ceide Fields in Co Mayo.
Recent earlier discoveries dating to the Middle Stone Age and excavations by Michael, Clodagh and Elaine Lynch in West Clare will be presented.
Stunning new medieval sculptures found in Cóilin O Drisceoil’s archaeological dig at St Mary’s Church, Kilkenny City will be explored, some of which have parallels in the Galwegian sculpture at St Nicholas’ Collegiate Church.
The conference is free of charge and includes a light lunch but places should be booked with Elaine Coffey at Galway City Council 091 536410 or elaine.coffey@galwaycity.ie
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