Knockavelly Glebe Graveyard .
Knockavelly Glebe Graveyard
Nancy Mulhern
A valuable source of historical information to any village or town are the
graveyards, hence, the decision for the Newport Historical society to take
on the job of researching Knockavelly Glebe graveyard.
Knockavelly Glebe,1 Cnoc a mhile, hill of the mile or hill of the warrior
or champion, situated in the south east corner of Newport, consisting of 15
acres, 1 rood, 6 perches. It contains Glebe House, a Protestant graveyard
and the ruins of an old Protestant church.
The society was granted permission by the owner Mr. Hughes to carry out the
necessary work required.
The ground was purchased by James Moore who developed Newport town and
port, and had a vault built there in 1766.
Natural growth has resulted in the disappearance of many memorials. During
a partial cleanup, some tombstones, beneath ground surface, were uncovered,
also trees have fallen over resulting in collapsed headstones and one in
particular broken in minute pieces. However the group persisted in mapping
out the area and numbering and recording some of the graves.
Two factors cause the greatest problems to headstones, weathering and
erosion, making the inscriptions difficult to decipher, but with
perseverance we were able to read most of the engravings.
Many of the unadorned headstones are completely covered in writing, all of
the inscriptions were incised with a variation of lettering used. Spelling
deviated from the normal in some cases.
Not many of the monuments were erected vertically, most of them are
horizontal, and approximately 1m X 2m in size and are made of limestone.
Numerous uninscribed mounds were located, concluding these to be famine graves.
The only overground vault contains the O'Donels of Newport House,
descendants of the famous Red Hugh. Situated in another part of the
cemetery, memorials of other relatives can be seen, some of them from
Castlebar.
Sources :
1 Knockavelly Glebe -
Ordnance Survey Field
Name Books 1838
Book 20 Parish of Burrishoole