Thirty years of looking after New Abbey

When people come along to seek out ancestors at New Abbey Cemetery in Kilcullen they're always struck by how well the place looks, writes Brian Byrne. But it wasn't always that way.

"When my father died in 1983, we could hardly get into the place to dig the grave," says John Brady, who has led the voluntary maintenance project for the facility for these last three decades. "A section had been cleared up over some of the previous years, but there was still a lot that needed to be done."

So he put the word out, and the first response came from the late Mick Kelly and his wife, and Lil Delaney, all neighbours in Kilcullen. "They got down to clearing the ivy from the walls at first," John recalls. "They mucked away at it, and it took off from there. Gradually other people got involved down the years."

The first major achievement was the clearance of the overgrown original part of the Cemetery, in which there were many very old headstones, often with indecipherable names. "We tried to get in touch with as many families as we could who might be connected to the graves, but we didn't get much response. We had to go ahead and level the area anyway, because otherwise we couldn't have maintained it."

He's conscious today that naming people who helped can be troublesome, because somebody is bound to be left out. But he recalls particularly the help of the late Vincent Conway, who was managing a local FAS Scheme, and they got stuck in with strimmers to clear out the dense overgrowth before they helped with the levelling of the section. "The late Martin Murphy also helped a lot, taking away the clay and stuff we dug out." He also notes that in the mid-70s a group including Noreen Lynch, Tommy Orford, Joe Boyne, and Liam O'Connor had carried out significant clearing of part of the graveyard.

Also among the early helpers was Noel Steed, who cut the grass in the central area with a tractor and mowing bar. "He was pretty handy with it, because he never hit any of the standing gravestones."

Eventually, realising that this was going to be an ongoing project, a secondhand commercial ride-on mower was sourced by local man Des O'Brien, and a loan from the Credit Union of £2,500 secured it. That meant a number of fairly serious fundraising events had to be undertaken to help repay the investment.

"The next part of the project was restoring the paths. First we had to lay 1,300 kerbstones, which was done with help from Paddy Brannigan, Jim Cardiff, Mick Kelly and others. Again, Martin Murphy helped with clearing the clay and digging out the paths for the gravel finish. Eventually we had them tarred." Others that John recalls from that time were Jimmy O'Neill and Wally Pembroke. "But there were lots more involved through the 30 years."

The clearance work had not only resulted in a number of unmarked and broken ancient gravestones, but also parts of the construction of the original Abbey from which the Cemetery is named. These were subsequently placed against the walls around, and are a significant element of the interesting look to the space today.

"We played a prank on a local historian, piling some of those stones on a heap of debris when we knew he was coming down, and he thought they were going to be thrown out," John recalls with a grin. "He nearly went mad."

In 2008, the parking area outside the Cemetery was tarmaced, with the help of funds raised through a significant donation to the project from New Abbey Stud, support from Kilcullen Lions Club and Kilcullen Drama Group, and a Table Quiz, as well as public contributions.

John became official caretaker for the Kilcullen and Gormanstown graveyards over time, and today he's assisted in managing the paperwork by his wife Anna Mae. A decreasing grant from Kildare County Council helps with the maintenance, and extra funds are raised at the annual Cemetery Sundays where people attending donate to collection boxes.

"We also have, recently, got some helpers through the TUS scheme, which has made a big difference this year."

This article was first published on the Kilcullen page of The Kildare Nationalist.