School: Newtowncunningham (roll number 11122)
- Teacher: Seán Pr. Ó Raighne
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 1107, Page 59
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- XML School: Newtowncunningham
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- XML “St Mary's Graveyard”
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- St Mary's GraveyardThere was an old graveyard in the same place as St Mary's Church and Well, but there are no ruins of it now and crops are grown in its place. My father told me how people knew that there was a graveyard there, was, because human bones were found by my grandfather. It also belongs to Miss Houston. The place where it was is one mile out of Newtowncunningham and about three hundred yards from my house. It was triangular in shape and it was level. No one buries in it now. The graveyard lay in the direction of North West. In days gone by the people that were buried in the graveyard had no coffins for themselves as now a days; they had only one coffin
for every district, it was just like a hearse now and people that died were put in the coffin and carried on four sticks and that was called "hand-spokes" and when they went to the graveside they were tumbled out of the coffin into the grave, and the coffin was brought back again. Every person that went to the funeral brought flat stones with them. They were built on top of the grave.Kathleen Toye
- Collector
- Kathleen Toye
- Gender
- Female
- Address
- Killyverry, Co. Donegal
