School: Knockgraffon (roll number 10560)
- Location:
- Knockgraffon, Co. Tipperary
- Teacher: Mary B. Cleary
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0559, Page 171
Image and data © National Folklore Collection, UCD.
See copyright details.
DownloadOpen data
Available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
- XML School: Knockgraffon
- XML Page 171
- XML “Digging a Grave”
Note: We will soon deprecate our XML Application Programming Interface and a new, comprehensive JSON API will be made available. Keep an eye on our website for further details.
On this page
- The local grave is Pat Maher. He and two other men with spades and shovels dig a hole 7’x4’x5’.
Two men standing in the grave take down the coffin and unscrew the lid. This is done to let in the air so that the corpse would decompose quickly.
If a priest is not present at the funeral some clay previously blessed is placed in the coffin. The popular tradition connected with this is that in the consecrating of the graveyards one was over-looked and it is not known which is the unconsecrated, one.
So to ensure that the person is buried in consecrated clay the Blessed clay is put into the coffin.
- Collector
- Val O' Dwyer
