A GHASTLY GRAVEYARD SCENE IN IRELAND.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5424, 3 July 1879, Page 3

A GHASTLY GRAVEYARD SCENE IN IRELAND.

The JFreeman's Journal gives a long and graphic description of the present condition of Killester churchyard, near Dublin. It appears that in 1877 the Local Government Board officially closed the plafle as one, from a sanitary point of view, unfit for Use* The following description by the Freeman's correspondent will show how far this order has been neglected, arid the terrible consequeuces : — Presumably for the better enforcement of the order, the gate leading from the road to the churchyard has been recently removed, and the space walled Up with soiid masonry. , But rtHbout^haintention. of ''knowingly of unknowingly '^, being guilty of a burial, a peTdtfd may. W tempted to cross the wall into, the 1 old 'closed churchyard. :The scene, within iriight well shock the- strongest -nerves. The whole place is strewn with the fragments of detsayirig 1 rilbrtality. " The first QbjeoVt&Ert nfe*etsT;the' tefe jvfafc iflelde the disused entrflricS ' is a cofiSn of dark polished wood — a child's coffin manifestly, by its size. It is almost nefo The tarnish is still fresh upon the wood ; the heads of the screws that fasten the lid are unrusted. .(There has been, no : inj;.ernient — -no pretence.. ;of» an interment. V {The coffin lies, as it: has been laid, on the surface of the earth $ and how it came there, arid is Certainly a mystery that demands solutions No criminal -would thus; expose the body of the tictim | no parent or friend would surely be satisfied with such maimed funeral rights— would let the bofdyof dead child lie and rot like & dog over-.groiinc!. Btrt this coffin^ though the strongest,- is" by no' .ineahs the* only or the most revolting SjrtcftacTef the place contains. It is a very small tihut eh* yard, an acre in extent, sunk clown between four high walls, and littered with white, unhealthy, elder bushes and rank weeds. It is a truly grue'sfotn'e place in the grey twilight. From a large garden across' the road comes the cheery piping of the redbreast and the shrill notes of thethftratle cutting the still air, but within the ptedncts of the churchyard it is ad silerit as though it were one great grave. Within the txivaM family baryingplaces were evidently, in the old times, preserved. There is a broad headstone on which the date of October 16, 1875, is inscribed, which tells that Peter Byrne Eleanor Byrne, husband and 'wife, Rev. P. H. Byrne and Peter Byrne, brothers, all lie interred in the grave at its foot. But all over the grave where they lie is stuck with f tide wooden crosses, to mark new interments, and show how little the sanctity of their repose has been respected. Perhaps the most pitiable spectacle is scattered fragments of mouldering coffins and discolored bones. Bits of broken tombstones and battered coffin plates are littered in all directions. Some of the coffins are a few inches above the surface, others lie level with the ground. The lids; in many cases have been wrenched off with apparent violence— how, it is needless to inquire — and the open coffins are so many little bits of festering corruption. The horrors are too horrible to detail. The whole scene is one of unutterable wildness and desolation. In the centre of the graveyard there is a small religious ruin, whose broad round arches would seem to speak antiquity. It ia muffled in thick ivy, and in this place of horrors is one poor grave which love has attempted to beautify. It is framed, iv ; with sticks and rough stones, and on the brown earth, over the grave a few sickly flowers are withering in the unwholesome air; Of course, now that public attention is directed to the condition of the graveyard, the sanitary authorities — they of the North Dublin Union — will take immediate steps for the decent interment of the dead, and for the prevention of recurrence of the horrible profanations that have been described.