Famine graveyard is no longer forgotten part of our history

PERHAPS it’s something to do with the current COVID-19 pandemic that has aroused a great deal of interest in the Dundalk Famine Graveyard which is being carefully restored by a dedicated team of volunteers, most of whom live in the vicinity of the graveyard, just off the Ardee Road.

In recent weeks there has been a steady stream of visitors to the graveyard which, according to official records, is the official resting place for 4,000 souls.

The thought of 4,000 bodies being buried in mass graves is beyond belief in the times in which we live, yet we have seen pictures on our TV screens of mass graves being opened for victims of COVID-19 in a number of countries, notably Brazil.

Most of us cannot believe that the same thing could happen in Ireland, but it is a fact that in the preparations for the arrival of COVID-19 to our shores authorities were asked to identify sites that may be needed for mass burials.

Thankfully that didn’t happen, due in large part to measures taken to contain the disease and the heroic work of the staff in our hospitals.

It is of course our sincere hope that we will continue to contain the disease, and that Dundalk, and other towns in the country will never have to contemplate the prospect of a mass graveyard, as the authorities had to do in the 1840’s during the famine years.

The graveyard was opened in 1852, and is located within walking distance of what was then called the Dundalk Union Workhouse. Later it was called, St. Oliver’s when rightly the stigma of the name ‘workhouse’ was removed.

The workhouse or hospital as many prefer to call it, was erected on an eight-acre site a mile to the south-west of the town.

Designed by the Poor Law Commissioners’ architect George Wilkinson, the building was based on one of his standard designs to accommodate 800 inmates.

Shortly after the hospital opened the country was devastated by the Great Famine, ‘ An Gorta Mor’, a period of mass starvation and disease from 1945 to 1845, caused by a blight on the potato crop.

An estimated one million people died, and while the most severely affected areas were in the south and the west, the northeast didn’t escape.

Many of those who died in the workhouse in that period are buried in the graveyard with the last interment taking place in 1900.

For a time the graveyard was well maintained, even though there were no headstones or any symbols depicting the burial plots of the men, women and children, or individual families.

Over the century since the last burial the graveyard fell into neglect, with vegetation destroying the neat stone walls that surrounded the site, and the grass area in the centre became badly overgrown.

For years there were suggestions that efforts should be made to reclaim the graveyard from the steady march of nature, but it was not until 2000 that a group of local people took the initiative.

They were motived by the thought that the people buried there were neglected in death, just as they had been neglected in life.

They believed that some dignity should be shown to these victims of the Great Famine by erecting a modest and appropriate memorial on the site.

Over the last 20 years they have restored the stone walls round the graveyard, and the grass surface that covers the graves.

In so doing they have renewed interest in the people buried there and the circumstances under which they lived.

They have also ensured that a memorial service is held annually, and hopefully over the years access to the site, which is difficult enough, can be improved with better surfaces and signage.

All of this has been done on a voluntary basis by dedicated people living in the area and to whom we all should be grateful.

It may be the current pandemic has made us realise that we should cherish life itself and our history a little more.