This is the beautiful old graveyard at Drimoleague, in the heart of West Cork.
The gable end of a medieval church is still standing on this site,
and this ruin is surrounded by numerous graves and tombs
from members of the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Methodist communities.
There are centuries of burials in this graveyard,
generations of local people, from nameless Famine victims to the Scorcher who went off to war.
My name is Terri and I'm from Skibbereen Heritage Centre,
and I'd like to bring you on a short tour of this fascinating graveyard.
Just inside the entrance at Drimoleague graveyard there is a memorial
dedicated to those buried in this site during the Great Famine.
This marks the site of a mass grave used during An Gorta Mór, Ireland's Great Hunger of the 1840s,
and this mass grave site is known locally as an poll an gorta.
West Cork was one of the worst affected areas in Ireland during the Famine,
and the Drimoleague area lost some 42 percent of its people
to disease, starvation, and emigration during that terrible time.
We have some horrific reports about Famine conditions in Drimoleague,
including this witness statement from Dr Dan Donovan about the village of Meenies,
just north of Drimoleague, which appeared in the 'Illustrated London News' in February 1847.
A man of the name of Healy died in the parish of Drimoleague about a fortnight ago,
His wife and two children remained in the house until the smell from the body
drove them from their companionship with the dead,
The remains of poor Healy were left in the house,
and a day or two afterwards, some people passing his cabin heard loud snarling coming from within,
and, on entering, found the gnarled and mangled skeleton of Healy
contended for by a pack of
hungry dogs and pigs that were completing their horrid banquet on his putrid remains.
Nothing remains of the village of Meenies today but we do have another Famine story
told by children from that village,
about a man called Ned Good who was paid to bury the dead during the Famine.
One day Ned was followed by the Meenies children as he brought a body to the graveyard,
the children saw the supposedly dead man raise his arm
and, to their horror, Ned struck the arm with his spade and continued to bury the body.
The children rushed to get help and the buried man was saved.
Reverend Tuckey, Vicar at this church in Drimoleague during the Famine,
wrote about the graveyard in March 1847.
You might see pieces of coffins lying in the churchyard here,
the bodies having been torn up and devoured by dogs
the head constable told me that on last Sunday, just before we went to church,
a body was found half eaten, dragged across the wall.
We saw a woman with her son on her back, she brought him to be buried without a coffin,
and when that was done she went home for another.
Last Sunday we saw her again there. She had just buried her seventh and last.
There are many more stories from this graveyard,
including one about an unusual headstone, located near the Famine plot.
On a previous visit here
I met a family who had been searching for years for their family headstone,
and on the day in question they found it. and this is it, a wonderful headstone with
a beautiful heart-shaped hole in it and that's how they recognised it.
Ann O'Donovan and her family had been visiting this graveyard for years,
searching for the location of her grandparents' and brother's grave without success.
Then her daughter happened to come across a story recorded in the schools' folklore collection
about Ann's grandfather finding a beautiful heart-shaped stone while ploughing his field.
The family had never heard of this story, and were unaware
that this very stone had been used to mark the grave of their ancestors.
When visiting the graveyard on the 60th anniversary of Ann's brother's death,
they stumbled upon this unusual stone,
and realised they'd finally found the grave.
The other side of Drimoleague graveyard is the final resting place of John Mahoney,
a soldier who served in World War One, who was known locally as the Scorcher.
We're here at the grave of J. O'Mahoney, known locally as the Scorcher,
given the name for his athleticism on the football field, he captained the local parish team in 1902.
Today the club is called Clann na Ngael, nicknamed the Scorchers.
John later went on to fight in Flanders in the First World War.
John was sent to France in July 1915,
just a few months later he was injured when he was crushed in a trench,
where he lay buried for three days.
His letters home record his loneliness for his family,
but he still signs off lightheartedly as 'Jack alias Scorcher'.
His letter home in January 1919 is
full of excitement about finally coming home to see his family,
although he mentions several times the 'dreadful disease' which is the Spanish 'flu.
After returning to Ireland, just a few months later he himself succumbed to the 'flu
and died in Skibbereen on the 9th of April 1919.
Near the back wall of the graveyard is this unusual memorial to William Feckman,
a Methodist preacher who was highly regarded in West Cork.
Feckman inherited a large estate as a young man
and his memoir records that he 'hunted, caroused, and played at cards'.
In his later years he found God, and became a Methodist preacher,
eventually settling in West Cork.
The William Feckman Memorial Chapel in Drimoleague is named in his honour,
and there is also a plaque to his memory in the former Methodist church in Skibbereen,
now the Church Restaurant.
And now we'll finish with a short tour of some of the other memorials
in this beautiful old Drimoleague graveyard...