Category: Laois - Reading the Signs

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Which Mr. Shepherd?

26/9/2025

Who was last member of the Rhossili Coastguard who attended the rescue of 11 people from the Roche Castle in 1937

The language and grammar on headstones are not always precise and exact.

Shepherd headstone at St Mary the Virgin graveyard, Rhossili, Wales

The headstone on the right is at Killeshin in Co. Laois.

Does ‘HIS’ refer to the first named on the headstone? Or the previous name?

Sometimes, if the age at death is stated, it does help clarify. Other times, I have gone down a rabbit hole – checking out the genealogy records of people unknown to me, people whose name I have only seen on a headstone.

IrishGenealogy did confirm that Julia was married to Robert – not James.

“The Board of Trade’s shield for the “best wreck service of the year” was awarded to the Rhossili Company for the rescue on the night of the 10th January, 1937 of ten of the crew of the trawler Roche Castle, which went ashore on the rocky Gower coast, about twelve miles from Swansea.”

The Lifeboat – October 1938, p. 564

My assumption is that Raymond Hussey Shepherd was the ‘last member of the Rhossili Coastguard who attended the rescue of 11 people from the Roche Castle in 1937”.

If the footnote was carved when there was only one name on the headstone, there would have been clear and obvious as to who was the last surviving member of the coastguard.

If the footnote was added with the second name, Christopher, my assumption is that the footnote would have so clarified – but assumptions are not always correct.

The Roche Castle has gone on the TO FIND OUT MORE list as so far have had limited success.

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.

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.”

Remembered With A Smile

25/10/2024

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

Nothing more needed for this blog post

Just Me, The Bees & The Dead

16/8/2024

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.

LaRue - LeRewe

19/5/2024

Another Cemetery Rambling

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.

HEADSTONES FROM ABROAD

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’.

A Brave Father & Two Worthy Sons

10/7/2019

There have been quite a number of tweets today remembering Kevin O’Higgins who was killed on his way to Mass in Booterstown Avenue, Co. Dublin on this day in 1927 – Barry Sheppard including a cartoon of Gordon Brewster from the Evening Herald; This Day in Irish History; RTE Archives; Minister Charlie Flanagan; and, The Irish At War.

Come Here to Me, and Stair na hEireann give information on the man and the assassination.

All of this reminded me of the memorial which I spotted in Stradbally, Co. Laois last year. I was particularly taken with the inscription, ‘A Brave Father and Two Worthy Sons’. This was more significant when I read an Irish Times article today that Kevin O’Higgins father was murdered in 1923 by the I.R.A. in revenge for I.R.A. men executed by the Free State on direction of Kevin O’Higgins.

Hung, Drawn, Quartered and Burnt

28/12/2014

Since starting this blog, I have read a small number of plaques regarding Martyrs.

Recently, outside Durrow in Co. Laois, I came across another plaque to Martyrs who were, upto then, totally unknown to me.

At least I now know a little about John O’Molloy, Cornelius o’Doherty and Geoffrey O’Farrell – and also that there are quite a number of Irish Martyrs.

“Franciscan Memorial

In memory of the three Franciscan Friars

John O’Molloy, Cornelius O’Doherty, Geoffrey O’Farrell

Martyred 15th December 1588

They had been inspired preachers of the Word of God to their people in the Catholic tradition and had ministered throughout Leinster. According to records, they were captured and first beaten with sticks and scourged with whips. They were then offered rich rewards to abandon their beliefs which all three rejected. As a result they were hanged, drawn and quartered and their remains burnt in Oldtown, Abbeyleix.”