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A Familiar Face

13/6/2025

St Fergal's Cemetery, Ballacolla

R445 - outside Portlaoise

Last week, driving home, I took some me time and visited a cemetery that I had not been in previously.

St Fergal’s Cemetery in Ballacolla is relatively new with just 46 names recorded on the headstones – the oldest is on the front row, dated 1989.

A number of headstones include photographs of those residing in the graves but it was the photograph of Fergus Hanlon that paused my ramble – that face looked familiar.

I should not, in hindsight, be surprised that my recording of roadside memorials and my walks through graveyards should occasionally overlap. It doesn’t happen often but it did last week. Yesterday, I went searching through folders of photographs.

It was in 2015 that I stopped at the memorial on the R445 outside Portlaoise that remembers Matthew Peters, Aoife Carroll, Raymond Cuddy, Lorraine Bowe, and Fergal Hanlon. The memorial contains a photograph of each of the five who died twenty seven years ago today.

How Traditions Develop

12/6/2025

These religious statues gave me a definite reason to stop and investigate.

Driving from Tullow back to Carlow on Tuesday evening, I was surprised by a line of statues against a stone wall at a Y-junction.

My first thought was possibly a cillín – the triangular small piece of ground being similar to the junction at Ton Duff near Abbeyleix. But no……

That impression proved incorrect. I was at Leamenah graveyard. It has a small few legible headstones.

Google Streetview confirms that the statues outside the graveyard walls were there in September 2023: one appears to be there in September 2019; and, none in July 2018.

How, Why and When this tradition started is now on my To Find Out More list.

Gentle George

11/6/2025

Kilbride, Co. Carlow - near Altamont

Today provided another first……….
Cahir does have a plaque commemorating Crimean Bob. Off the Glen Avenue in Cork, there is what appears to be a headstone to Corkie and Rocky.
In May 2023, my collection of roadside memorials stood at 938 – it is now over a thousand.
But today was the first roadside memorial that I have spotted remembering a dog.
Gentle George, never met, but will live long in this memory

A map of 938 memorials

Fierce Notions Altogether

10/6/2025

A First – A Definite First

I have been doing this blog for over twelve years. I have been noting signs and advertisements for much longer.

This evening, I had to double back to photograph the plaque bearing the name of this Carlow home.

Brilliant – Absolutely Brilliant.

What is an Amhann?

1/6/2025

Or as Gaeilge – Cad is brí le Amhann?

The truck was parked on Lavitt’s Quay in Cork a few years back. It did provide a riddle for this reader – a riddle yet unsolved.

‘Abhann’ is the Irish for ‘River’

When I saw the address of Amhann Road, my inclination was to suspect a typo – but no. Amhann Road does exist in Raheen Business Park in Limerick – but what is an Amhann?

It doesn’t exist in the Chambers English Dictionary.

In Irish, it doesn’t exist in Teanglann or Pota Focal.

Logainm is the Placenames Datanase of Ireland. It provides details of the basis of names of places and streets. It has no mention of Amhann or Amhann Road.

So, What is an Amhann? I have no clue.

Intelligence……..or………Bull………………….or Both

31/5/2025

This van was the first time I saw marketing or branding for Artificial Insemination, the Bull.

The photograph was taken outside Blacklion in Co. Cavan fourteen years ago.

I have thought about the photograph frequently – very often in recent years, but have never got around to moving from my Sundry Folder to the Already Blogged folder.

The efforts of M.E.P. Ciaran Mullooly this week relying on fiction created by Artificial Intelligence does suggest that he may have been better leaving A.I. to The Bull.

Remembering Those Who Left

30/5/2025

I have often seen headstones paid for or erected by family members who emigrated to other countries.

But this plaque in Ballacolla Church in Co. Laois is not of a type that I have seen very often – erected to Great Gandparents 146 years after they lefy for America

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven – W.B. Yeats

Can you let things go????

29/5/2025

Life Advice – Barista-style

A while back I met KH in town. He was finishing his coffee but was retaining the disposable coffee cup to share the message that had been written by the barista.

Me – not really the way that I am wired……..

An Unexpected Titanic Encounter

28/5/2025

Last June, I took some me-time to stroll around the graveyard of St Michael’s All Angels in Abbeyleix.

I definitely did not have any expectation to see any reference to The Titanic but it was provided in a cenotaph to William Henry Gillespie. He was lost with Titanic on 15th April, 1912.

The first and fourth sons of Richard and Eliza Gillespie were both named William Henry. The first was born in 1871 but died as an infant. The fourth was born in October 1880 and given the name of his deceased sibling – something that I have encountered a few times.

The connection to The Titanic does mean that there is some information online regarding William who travelled from Southampton, second class, intending to go to Canada.

From Laois Local Studies website, this “is the story of William Gillespie, senior sales clerk with the Abbeyleix Carpet Factory, who perished on the Titanic. It was written, filmed and and edited by Margaret Kane-Rowe and funded by Creative Ireland, Decade of Commemorations and Creative Laois.”

Door Step Artists

27/5/2025

Old Cork Road, Midleton

College Street, Castlegregory

Many years of looking down for messages – sometimes it pays off.

Last month, walking along the Old Cork Road in Midleton, I spotted an engraving in the stone threshold at a front door and it was a prompt to write the blog post to an engraved manhole cover at College Street in Castlegregory.

In 2017, I spotted the work of P. Bowler who managed to mark his name into the manhole cover outside his (assumed) front door. T. Cahill’s engraving was into limestone. Neither are what would be considered a soft surface.

These engravings are similar to the Marian Year manhole cover on John Redmond Street but I expect that the council team had an opportunity to carry out the work remotely, possibly in the council workshop. P Bowler and T Cahill, I expect, had to do their carving on their hands and knees – significantly more impressive.

I wonder how many people regularly walk up College Street in Castlegregory or Old Cork Road in Midleton and have never seen the handiwork of Cahill and Bowler…….

Mahomet – Momento Mori

26/5/2025

I have generally only seen Momento Mori carved on headstones – or on photographs of headstones.

I had never seen one written in market on a Utility Box – until two months ago when waiting for a bus outside C.U.H. that is.

Of the near 1,000 roadside memorials that I have recorded around the country, I think only one has been in marker. There were a few painted.

As to the questions:

Who was Mahomet?
Who is Simon?
When was the message done?

I have no answers………

A Second 32nd Bridge

25/5/2025

Clean Shiny New Bridge

As You Are Now, So Once Was I

When the Mary Elmes Bridge was put in place in 2019, it was the 32nd bridge over the two channels of the River Lee.

This new bridge from Proby’s Quay to the Beamish site is also the 32nd bridge over the two channels of the River Lee.

I sincerely hope that Cork City Council have a better plan for maintenance of this bridge that the similar curved Mardyke Bridge.

The Old Bridge to the Bon Secours has been removed after the Mary Elmes was put in place.

A list of the 31 bridges in place before the Mary Elmes Bridge - clockwise

The Old Bridge To Bon Secours - now removed

The Old Bridge To Bon Secours - now removed

I have not included the bridges over the Mill Race at the Distillery - it is arguable that this race is another cahnnel of the Lee and should be counted......

Erected By A Friendly Hand

24/5/2025

North Kilmurry, Berrings, Co Cork

This headstone appears to have been a gift, from a non-family member.

In contrast to a recent blog, the gift-giver preferred anonymity and did not put themselves above others.

Better – methinks.

Names - Not Often Seen Now

23/5/2025

Walking through St Finbarr’s Cemetery recently, there were so many names that appear to have disappeared from use – or at least have disappeared from what I encounter

Alacoque - Albeus – Alipius - Aloyse – Ansbert - Anselm - Aquin - Aquinas – Aure – Baptist - Benigna - Benilda -Berchmans - Berthe – Boniface – Canute - Carthage – Cecilius - Celsus - Chrysostum – Climachus - Colombiere – Comgall - Consiglio – de Ricci – de Sales - Dositheus - Eloi – Emilian – Eulogius - Euphamia - Euphrasia - Evangelist – Felicitas - Flavian – Gonzaga – Gonzales - - Hildabert – Justa - Justinian - Ladislaus – Laurentia - Liguori – Loyola - Ludivine - Mary Visitation – Mechtilde – Modwena - Octave - Perpetua – Prisca - Regis – Ricci - Roch – Rufina - Sarto – Scholastice - Sulpice – Theophile - Virgilius – Walburga – Wenceslaus – Zita

Some Contributed – Others Did Not

22/5/2025

It doesn’t happen often ….. but this headstone brought to mind WhatsApp Groups.

Kate Brennan, a 19 year old School Mistress died in the North Infirmary on 17th January, 1887

There is nowt as queer as folk is definitely true. One aspect of the differences between people is self-publicity and self-promotion – especially at the expense of others: me better than you……

Me? I am definitely a photo-opportunity-avoider. If unavoidable, preference is for somewhere at the back. I am not one for self-credit. When acting in a voluntary role, any credit should go to the organisation. When acting personally or professionally, any credit is not sought to the extent of being denied or avoided.

One of my most recent absolute dislikes is the group chat facility on WhatsApp.

I cannot be alone in reading posts and thinking that a particular post is definitely more appropriate as a direct individual message and not a group chat. There are so many group messages that I read and immediately wonder if the primary function was the message, or alternatively to tell the entire group as to how appreciative/facilitatory/welcoming/helpful I am compared to others – look at me, I am so good.

If the message is addressed to one, why communicate to the group??? The day I can finally exit WhatsApp groups cannot come fast enough.

To me, ‘Erected by a few members of the R.I.C.’ reads as a rebuke to those who did not contribute to the headstone. Once again, it may just be the way I am (or have been) wired……