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MIXED MESSAGES.

Using signs, advertisements and messages as the inspiration for observation and comment - enlightened and otherwise

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The Order Of Listing The Dead

13/11/2024

1 Comment

 
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Crew -Not Aplhabetical
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Passengers - Alphabetical
Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of the crash of flight AA587. A Bluesky post from Christopher P. Hood linked to his article on the memorial and the crash.
 
I have spent some time online looking at different images of the memorial and the commemoration events.
 
The memorial has gone on my TO VISIT map – not sure I’ll ever get to New York again, but it is on the map just in case. However, it is the apparent random order of the names recorded on the memorial which has me intrigued. It sent me on a little investigation that will no doubt lead to much more time and episodes of Dark Tourism, particularly commemoration of transportation crashes.
 
Rockaway Memorial Park – Flight AA587

Appears that there is a random order of names of the dead.
 
Buttevant Train Crash – 1st August, 1980
​

The names of the 18 who died are not listed alphabetically – a random order.
Pan-Am Flight 1-10 – 15th April, 1948

Grave at Drumcliffe, Ennis lists the passengers in alphabetical order but the crew in a seniority ranking
‘Frank Carl Jakel, aged 35, Captain Pilot, married, from New Hyde Park, New York
Carlton Monroe Henson Jr., aged 27, First Officer Pilot, from Forest Hills, Long Island, New York
Everette G. Wallace, aged 28, Second Officer, married, from New York
Hector R. LeBlanc, aged 29, Third Officer, married, from New York
Stanley J. Frank, aged 31, Assistant Aero Engineer, married, from New York
James Victor Sexton, aged 31, Radio Operator, married, from New York
Bruce J. Nevers, aged 32, Assistant Radio Operator, married, from New York
John J. Hoffmeier, aged 40, Purser/Chief Steward, married, from New York,
Bernadine Marie Feller, aged 23, Stewardess, from New York, and Victor, Iowa’
 
FindAGrave
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Aer India Flight 182 – 23rd June 1985
 
Passengers are listed on the memorial at Ahakista in alphabetical order. The 22 crew are not listed alphabetically. The New York Times printed the job of each crew member. Putting them in the order of the memorial does appear to signify a grade ranking system – similar to Pan-Am
NARENDRA. H. S., captain
BINDER, S. S., captain
DUMASIA, D. D., flight engineer
LAZAR, S., flight systems manager
SINGH, S. P., purser
THAKUR, K. M., purser
THAKUR, I., purser
SHUKLA, S., purser
RORICKS, F. S., flight attendant
DINSHAW, P., flight attendant
GAONKAR, S., flight attendant
PITASEKAR, R. R., flight attendant
KAJ, L., flight attendant
GHATGE, S., flight attendant
LASRADO, S., flight attendant
BHASIN, R., flight attendant
RAGHAVAN, S., flight attendant
VAID, N. purser
SHAH, B. K., purser
KASHIPRI, N.,purser
SETH, K. K., purser
DINSHAW, J., purser
 
Extracted from New York Times
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Non-Transportation Disasters
 
The various memorials to those who died at Hillsborough; as well as those to the Stardust and the Dromcollogher Cinema Fire all appear to list in alphabetical order.
 
 


Hopefully my sample size for this study will increase with visits over time.

1 Comment

Remembered With A Smile

25/10/2024

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As epitaphs go, that is probably as good as it gets.

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Nothing more needed for this blog post

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A Lingering Illness Did Me Seize

18/10/2024

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A LINGERING ILLNESS DID
ME SEIZE AND NO PHYSICIAN
COULD ME EASE ALL MEANS
WAS SAUGHT BUT ALL (?IN VAIN?)
TILL GOD WAS PLEASED TO ???
?? ME PAIN HASTE PREPAR?? ???
??? DELAY FOR IN MY PRIME
??? ?AS SNAT????

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​ 
I suspect that on any given day, there are not many people who think of John Driscoll but he did come to my mind today – today being day 18 of #31DaysOf Graves for the month of October on Twitter. The theme for day 18 is poem/verse which reminded me of this to John Driscoll who died in July 1840.
 
It also acted as a memo to self to get back to Kilbarry Cemetery in Dunmanway to try to establish those words that are not legible from my photographs – any suggestions welcome.
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With Which Wife To Be Buried ......

22/9/2024

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Upto recently, I had it in my head that traditionally when a wife died young, she would generally be buried in her own family plot – not the grave of her husband. I cannot recall the source of my understanding but it was firmly rooted and long established – possibly to facilitate the burial of the husband with (possible) future mother of his children,
 
My meeting with Henry Waters early one morning last July started a serious challenge to what I believed to be the norm. Henry rests in Courthoyle Cemetery in Co. Wexford with two wives who predeceased him. Mary Josephine died in 1957; Mary in 1994; and, Henry in 1996.
 
Later that day, I was chatting with Alan as to Henry disabusing me of my undertsnding when he told me of a relative whose parents are buried in separate graveyards as her father is buried with his first wife.
 
Recently, reading Catherine Corliss’ book Belonging, she told of a similar burial arrangement in Tuam.
‘Some time previously, the head of the committee had shown me the grave where Julia Devaney was buried. It was a single plot as her husband was buried with his first wife. It had a cement base with a simple iron cross with her name and age and date of death, which had rusted over time.’
 
Belonging – A Memoir of Place, Beginnings and One Woman’s Search for Truth and Justice for the Tuam Babies – Catherine Corless

​
 
So it stands as 3 – 0 against what I was convinced was tradition – I must try to find out how I came to believe that the body of the young wife returned to her own family.

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Just Me, The Bees & The Dead

16/8/2024

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On the journey home last Tuesday, I stole some time-out, some me-time. Killermogh Graveyard was perfect – quiet, solitary, peaceful.
 
This plot had no headstone that I could see. Close up inspection of the lavender revealed that I was not alone.


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Adjoin – Is that what it means?

20/5/2024

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Entering the New Cemetery in Kilavullen, I had no expectation that I would be searching for a dictionary. A graveyard is a great place to chill out and let the words, the fonts and the style of headstones take one’s mind on adventures.
 
I have used the word ‘adjoining’ to refer to items on the same horizontal plane – adjoining bedrooms in a hotel; adjoining fields; adjoining houses in a terrace. The neighbour each other and share a boundary.
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‘adjoin verb (adjoined, adjoining) to be next to and joined to something. adjoining adj. ETYMOLOGY: 14c: from French ajoindre, from Latin ad to + jungere to join.’
 
Chambers Dictionary
I have used the word ‘adjoining’ to refer to items on the same horizontal plane – adjoining bedrooms in a hotel; adjoining fields; adjoining houses in a terrace. The neighbour each other and share a boundary.
 
The third and fourth floors in a building would not have been described by me as adjoining but according to Chambers Dictionary, they could be. I just never thought of adjoining in a vertical plane- until the Nagle brothers in Kilavullen last week.
 
I get that the coffins may be next to each other vertically in a single plot but I have not yet reconciled how they they share a common boundary, how they are joined, except in death.

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LaRue  - LeRewe

19/5/2024

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​Another Cemetery Rambling

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I cannot remember a time when I did not know that Danny LaRue was from Cork, from Horgans Buildings to be precise. I suspect that my grandfather’s pride in The Lough parish was the source of my knowledge. I knew that LaRue was a stage name. The fact that his birth name was Daniel Patrick Carroll was not as well remembered hereabouts.
 
He came to mind when I took some time-out, some me-time, a recharge. I pass the sign for St. Laserians once a week or so. One day recently demanded some me-time – just me and the headstones, perfect.
 
Bridget LeRewe was one of the first people I met in the cemetery. My first thought was on ‘LeRewe’, a surname not registered previously, and any connection with ‘LaRue’, which did appear more appropriate for a drag artist.
 
Six weeks later, the web has educated that Rewe; Rouse; Rowse; le Rouse; Rouze; leRus; Russ; Ross; and, Rous all appear to derive from ‘le rous’ meaning redhead – potentially appropriate for an Irish Bridget.


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HEADSTONES FROM ABROAD
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​A few years back, when X was Twitter, I spotted a response from Damian Shiels to John Tierney about how interesting it would be ‘to pull together some of the Irish headstones thar make reference to America or family there, they are great way of visualising the diaspora.’
 
I did respond to the tweet with some such headstones encountered on my travels. This blog post has been a prompt to start the pulling together of American, and other country, references on headstone - HERE There is only a small number listed for now. I rely on the motto that ‘there is only one way to eat and elephant, one bite at a time’.
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A Drop of Mountain Dew with the Dead

6/5/2024

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​Extracts from poems and songs are a very pleasant diversion on my rambles through cemeteries. Some lyrics I recognise. Others are discovered, or rediscovered, through the nearest search engine.
 
In Ballinure Cemetery, in county Limerick, in early January, I stopped and took a photo of the words on the back of the Martin family memorial. They sounder familiar but could I place them?!?
 
In my defence, the Mountain Dew had not been filed in my brain with any associateion with funerals, graves or death. It is now….

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I spent a few hours this afternoon putting a list together of songs (and poems) that I have spotted on headstones in various cemeteries – an eclectic mix. If ever I get a one hour radio d.j. slot, my playlist is already done.

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Numero Uno Joe

5/5/2024

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​Erected By Myself To Myself

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When in Skibbereen late last year, this headstone caused me to pause a while. It reminded me of a couple of other headstones.
 
Patrick Morrissey of Balyduff in Co. Kilkenny was interviewed by Cathal O’Shannon next to his own headstone in 1971 that he had erected in advanvce of his death – ‘best thing you could do is to put up a memory stone to yourself before you get too old’.
 
His policy brough a smile – ‘Live as long as I can, and die when I can’t help it.’
 
George Marlborough’s headstone similarly brough a smile. I brought an even greater smile when I learnt that he drafted the wording himself, before death.

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The headstone at St Patrick’s Cemetery in Skibbereen defied internet searching until this morning’s trip into the Irish Newspaper Archives revealed an article in the Southern Star from 2003 about a short film by Gillian Morrison shown at the Cork Film Festival, called Numero Uno Joe which answered a few questions of mine:
 
Pearse, Wilde and Who?  Joe
 
‘I passed from life’ and ‘Erected by myself’ are both past tense, which was correct?  Joe was interviewed for the film in 2003
 
Another may need to await the film, if I can ever get to see it.
 
Sinatra did it his way. Piaf had no regrets. Is touching beauty from a song as well as a Wilde quote?
 
With his inscription, Joe has definitely increased the likelihood of his existence being remembered – by me anyway.
​‘Quoting from the transcript Joe states:– “I don’t want to be remembered for anything. Only just ....that I existed, and that I walked upon the earth sometime. That’s all. And the reason that I put thirty-nine....because John Millington Synge...he wrote “The Playboy of the Western World” and he died at thirty-nine. So I put that. And I put ‘I did it my way’ because, sure, I did. I did everything my own way .... and I never listened to other peoples’ voices. Only to my own, which is kind of selfish, if you like, I suppose, but anyway. I am Joe and that’s why”.’
 
Southern Star, 22 November, 2003, Page 3
​‘“A gentle and intimate documentary which treats its subject with immense respect, while revealing his very particular world”, was the citation the debut director received from the judges. It’s a comment film festival director, Mick Hannigan concurs with. “I had to sift through thousands of tapes for the festival but this one leapt out at me. It had a great subject matter, which was handled very articulately. In this day and age when self expression is frowned upon by the masses of people who live in big cities, a very individualistic Joe isn’t shy about saying who he is”, said Mr. Hannigan.’
Southern Star, 22 November, 2003, Page 3
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What Connects This Wall with Queen Victoria, Charlie Kerins and Michael Collins?

4/12/2023

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Charlie Kerins remains the last I.R.A. member to be condemned to death by the state and executed. That was on 1st December, 1944. A plaque to commemorate Charlie Kerins was erected at Easter 1947 and removed in May 1947 and was subsequently replaced.
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Memorials that have been damaged, removed or vandalised have been an interest of mine for some years. When doing the Local History course, I cited page 105 of Clodagh Tait’s book in more than two or three essays – ‘Tait suggests that the propaganda effect of some memorials and statues could not be overcome, except by their removal.’
 
Queen Victoria’s statue at the Aula Maxima in U.C.C. was removed and replaced with one of St. Finbarr.  It was buried for over 60 years before going back on display. Streetsigns bearing the name Victoria were painted over in recent years. The statue of Victoria that stood at Dáil Éireann was removed and spent a long time in storage before being sent to Australia.
 
Victoria’s was not the only memorial to be removed from the lawn of Leinster House. A cenotaph was erected in 1923 and had two panels, one commemorating Arthur Griffith: the other commemorating Michael Collins. This temporary structure deteriorated for many years before being replaced at a different location at Leinster House.
 
My own list of memorials damaged or removed has reached 65 and the categories of those commemorated varies widely. 

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‘The commemorative function of monuments was paramount. However, the expression of loss and regret for the dead was inextricably entwined with and, to an extent, secondary to attempts to continue the memory of their owners’ personal and social identities……..
 ….the endlessly manipulable nature of funeral monuments could become invaluable. By choosing an identity from the most socially acceptable elements of one’s past, present and future, and rendering this in stone, a medium which by its very nature could convey added veracity, solidity and permanency, reality could be created and controlled by the patron. Moreover, once reality is constructed in this manner, monuments allow for no doubt or argument. Their owners may be denounced or discredited, but monuments will continue to proclaim their own brand of truth. This is why contemporaries occasionally found it necessary to destroy monuments. The propaganda element inherent in them could not be countered in any other way.’
 Clodagh Tait, Death, Burial and Commemoration in Ireland, 1550-1650, p.105.
Back to the wall of St Iberius’s Church at Broadway in Co. Wexford. A plaque to Fiona Sinnott was removed the night before its planned unveiling in 2008. A replacement plaque was subsequently also removed. The adhesive/render is all that remains.
 
A plaque was erected at Kilmore Quay in 2018.

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Keeping – but Adapting – Customs

3/12/2023

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It was an article from 1921 that educated me as to the custom of placing crosses at a hawthorn bush as a funeral party made its way to the cemetery. The article suggested that it had died out in Cong, Co. Mayo and was lessening in the only other part of Ireland where it was known to exist, at Brandy Cross in the parish of Kilmore in Co. Wexford.
 

The Schools Collection from the 1930’s does have a number of mentions recorded by children of the district – James Newport; from Thomas Doyle – of placing a cross at the hawthorn or ash tree on the way to the cemetery.
 
​
A few years back, Aoife directed me towards an article on Irish Archaeology and also a piece by A. M. Cousins on Sunday Miscellany.
 

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Last week, on the last Tuesday in November, the sun was very low in the sky so on my trip to Kilmore Quay, I did well to stay on the road such was the glare from the sun. I saw very little to the side of the road. On the return journey, I was indeed ‘struck by the unusual sight of a heap of wooden crosses’.
 
Crosses used to be made of the left over pieces from the assembly of the coffin. Now the timber crosses, used by funeral directors to stand at the head of a grave until a headstone may be cut, are placed on the pile.
 
The crosses used to be placed at a tree on an old mass path. When a new cemetery was opened, a new tree was planted at a new location. The custom was relocated but continued.


​“When the coffin is supplied, the pieces of wood which remain over are cut into small crosses measuring two feet eight inches in height by eleven inches wide across the arms. These crosses are painted in various colours - green, blue, red and yellow. They have pointed shafts and one, which is meant to be planted in the soil at the head of the grave, is laid on the coffin, while the others are carried by the chief mourners behind. At the cross-roads nearest the cemetery there is always a tree, either hawthorn or ash, at the foot of which the procession pauses, and the cross-bearers lift their crosses to its branches, where they fix them and leave them. In some places the tree has fallen from age or other causes, but its root remains, or at all events the memory of the place where it grew ; and so the practice is continued, and the crosses are thrust in a heap, lying upon one another, till a mound often eight or ten feet high may be seen.”
“Ancient Funeral Custom in Kilmore Parish”:  The Past: The Organ of the Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society, No. 2 (Dec., 1921), pp. 146-148: Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society
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​“Visitors to Kilmore are always struck by the unusual sight of a heap of wooden crosses under a thorn tree on the roadside near Brandy Cross. The crosses are placed there by the mourners attending passing funerals, and I have often been asked for an explanation of the origin and meaning of the custom”
 
“Ancient Funeral Custom in Kilmore Parish”:  The Past: The Organ of the Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society, No. 2 (Dec., 1921), pp. 146-148: Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society
“When Grange closed in the 1950s, a communal decision was taken to maintain the ancient ritual and a new sceach between Kilmore village and the new cemetery was blessed and commissioned to carry the crosses for funeral generations. Since then hundreds of funerals have stopped at the crossroads and paused for a moment so that grieving families and friends can leave a wooden cross there to honour the memory of their loved ones and to continue our of most scared customs.”
A. M. Cousins - Funeral Crosses in the Sceach – Sunday Miscellany 03 November, 2019
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“We may ask what connection is there between the crosses which Miss Stokes found near Cong, those she saw near the mouth of the Somme, and those to be still seen in the parish of Kilmore ?

Did St. Fursa establish the custom near his early hermitage in Mayo in the seventh century ? Did he bring it with him to France and establish it on the spot where he first landed there ? And did our Norman ancestors bring it back to Ireland and establish it where they landed ? It is greatly to be regretted that their descendants, after over seven hundred \ ears, should allow it to disappear.

Miss Stokes writes (see appendix VII)?" This Irish custom seems to belong to the worship of the Instruments of the Passion, and to be connected with the Passion of Christ. The hawthorn, the whitethorn, and the blackthorn, all claim to have been used for the Sacred Crown of Thorns. . . . The form of procession, carrying in our hands ivy, sprigs of laurel, rosemary, and other evergreens, is said to be emblematic of the soul's immortality. So the bearing of the cross to a point, where at the meeting of four roads, that road is chosen which leads directly to the grave, is emblematic of the soul's submission ; while the laying down the cross upon the thorny branch that made the Saviour's Crown is an instance of Christian symbolism still lingering among our peasantry that ought not to pass unrecorded."”
​
“Ancient Funeral Custom in Kilmore Parish”:  The Past: The Organ of the Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society, No. 2 (Dec., 1921), pp. 146-148: Uí Cinsealaigh Historical Society
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Baltimore Industrial School

2/12/2023

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​I don’t think I’ve seen that before

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I have seen qualifications and trades noted on headstones. I have seen names of companies where the deceased worked. I have seen record of involvement with sports and community organisations. These all were important enough in the life of the deceased to be cut into stone.
 
Baltimore Industrial School left its mark on John Griffin – so deep that it stays with him even in the grave. The ‘sea of barbarism’ was how John Griffin described the institution. The Irish Times quotes him in response to the Laffoy Commission report, "It's now there on the record for generations to take heed and realise what happened to us." The engraving on the headstone is a prompt towards that record.
 
The Southern Star article after his dead has the headline ‘Storyteller John could put a smile on anyone's face’ – on a cold November afternoon at St Patrick’s Cemetery in Skibbereen, he did to me.

And if you come, when all the flowers are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.
And I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me
And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be
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Birds Got To Fly

6/8/2023

3 Comments

 
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​Was introduced to a new message on a gravestone last week while taking some pleasant time out at Loch Salach Cemetery in Clonee.
 
Fish Got To Swim…..
Birds Got To Fly……..
 
​A variation on ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do…..’
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I was intrigued as to Loch Salach which did look like it derived from Dirty Lake but logainm.ie does not appear to mention dirty about the Clonee Lough Salach. The Donegal Loughsallagh does have reference to dirty: as does Loughsallaghclogher in Co Galway – dirty lake of the stoney place.
 
Clonee and the Kerry variety appear to have been cleaned up in the logainm records.


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Commemorative Stones

4/8/2023

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It was only recently that I discovered the difference between a headstone and a gravestone – a headstone being at foot of grave and gravestone being at head of grave.
 
Walking Kilshannig Cemetery, I got to wondering as to what commemorative stones for those who have been  cremated are called, or will be called.
 
Ten years ago, in Derrynane, was when I first realised that stone memorials were erected to those who have been cremated. Somewhat reminiscent of cillín burials, the memorials were just outside the cemetery with a lovely view over the bay.
 
A few years back, I noted, with a smile, the memorial to Josephine Deane built into the boundary wall of the cemetery. This week, a return visit brought me to a new stone inserted into the wall remembering Pat Crowley / Pádraig Ó Crualaoch.
 
I have mentally filed these as commemorative stones, until told otherwise……..

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Another stone in wall - not of the type of the wall construction
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Carved In Stone

11/7/2023

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St. Martins, Templemartin

My inclination would be to spell the name as JOHANNA. In 1811, maybe JOHANA was a variation in use. But JOHAXA just looks wrong.
 
Maybe that was her name.
 
Maybe it was a correction of a mirrored N – similar to Liscleary – but one would expect removal of the incorrect diagonal if that were the case.
 
If a correction was to be done, I would have expected IHS to have been transformed into HIS.
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