Keeping Kilcullen's places of rest

It's exactly 34 years ago when I wrote the lead story in the August 'Bridge' that New Abbey Graveyard was 'now a place of pride', writes Brian Byrne.

That was after six months of work by John Brady and a team of volunteers in turning what had been an overgrown and scruffy place to a fitting space for people to visit the resting places of many loved ones.

The work was enabled in part by £1,500 provided from the Kilcullen community's 'Tops of the Town' draw.

They planned the operation with Kildare County Council officials and then cut grass, cleared ivy and weeds, and in the process found and cleaned many 'lost' gravestones, some going back to the 1700s.

Since then, John and his band of helpers have maintained New Abbey — and also the new St Brigid's Cemetery — as a park-like space beside the remaining ruins of what had been Kilcullen's parish church, in the Abbey from which the graveyard gets its name.

"But it doesn't just happen," John told the Diary this week when we went along to see how preparations were going for the Blessing of the Graves and Mass scheduled for Sunday 9 September. "There's a lot of work involved not just in keeping the place right, but also in managing the day when hundreds of parishioners gather together to remember relatives and friends who have passed on."

That management includes organising parking facilities and directing cars on the day, making sure there are no traffic jams and generally stewarding an event that has over the years been honed to operate like a well-oiled machine.

And of course, before all that, making a special effort to have both places of rest looking at their very best possible for the day.

Keeping them right takes money, part of which comes from an ever-decreasing grant from Kildare County Council, the rest from local donations, especially a collection made during the annual Cemetery Sunday event.

It also takes a constant amount of work by the helpers, some of whom have been involved for a long time, others are more recent participants. John isn't going to do a list of names, which could be as long as 30, because that's not why they do it.

"But I will mention some of those original people who got stuck in when we started out on this back in 1984," he says. "Many of them are gone now."

That list, which maybe should be placed on a 'place of pride' somewhere in New Abbey, includes Micheal and Lar Bathe, Pat Kelly, Fran Kelly, Noel Steed, Mick Kelly, Vincent Conway, Lil Delaney, Martin Murphy, Noreen Lynch, Tommy Orford, Joe Boyne, Paddy Brangan, Jim Cardiff, Jimmy O'Neill, Wally Pembroke, and Liam O'Connor.

On 9 September, there will be prayers in New Abbey at 3pm, and a mass in St Brigid's at 4pm.


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