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. 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.” “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” |
“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
“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