Meath – Rathregan Churchyard

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Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives
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File contributed by:  C. Hunt & M. Taylor

CEMETERY: RATHREGAN CHURCHYARD
	[From Miss MONTSERRAT and Miss E. O'MAHONEY]

'Inscription on upright stone at east end of the ruined
church' :-

	"Gloria in Excelsis Deo.
		   +
		  IHS
	     Of Your Charity
	    pray for the Souls of
	       James BlACKBURN
	Died 25 Feb. 1860 aged 63 years
		His wife Mary
	Died 5 Sept. 1863, aged 61 years
		Their children
	Ellen, died 3 Apl. 1857 aged 16 years
	Hugh, died 24 Dec. 1857 aged 25 years
	Mary, died 31 July 1858 aged 19 years
	Michael, died 15th Feb 1860 aged 29 years
	Christopher, died 6 Jan 1861 aged 26 years
	James died 23 Apl. 1862 aged 25 Years
		May they rest in peace. Amen"

'Close beside this ancient churchyard there is a large rath
from which the place takes its name.  The country people
here believe it is "unlucky" to injure this and have a kind
of tradition that the BLACKBURN family attempted to destroy
the "quicks" that grew upon it; in consequence of which
fatal act, father, mother and six fine children were laid in
the grave within six years.

'In the Ordnance Survey Letters it is stated that "Lismahon"
a farm in the neighbourhood is so called from a "lis" or
fort at which a "Colonel MAHON" was killed and buried "in
the times of the wars hundreds of years ago."

It was once customary (1836) at funerals that the dead
bodies should be carried round the "Monument Bush" on this
farm and also round the "Big tree" of Rathregan, at the
cross- roads near Batterstown where the body of a suicide
was once buried, whose ghost was supposed to haunt the
place.  But this custom is no longer observed.'

SOURCE:
Journal of the Association for the Preservation of the
Memorials of the Dead in Ireland. [Year] Film # 1279252