Knockavelly Glebe Graveyard .

Knockavelly Glebe Graveyard

Nancy Mulhern

A valuable source of historical information to any village or town are the

graveyards, hence, the decision for the Newport Historical society to take

on the job of researching Knockavelly Glebe graveyard.

Knockavelly Glebe,1 Cnoc a mhile, hill of the mile or hill of the warrior

or champion, situated in the south east corner of Newport, consisting of 15

acres, 1 rood, 6 perches. It contains Glebe House, a Protestant graveyard

and the ruins of an old Protestant church.

The society was granted permission by the owner Mr. Hughes to carry out the

necessary work required.

The ground was purchased by James Moore who developed Newport town and

port, and had a vault built there in 1766.

Natural growth has resulted in the disappearance of many memorials. During

a partial cleanup, some tombstones, beneath ground surface, were uncovered,

also trees have fallen over resulting in collapsed headstones and one in

particular broken in minute pieces. However the group persisted in mapping

out the area and numbering and recording some of the graves.

Two factors cause the greatest problems to headstones, weathering and

erosion, making the inscriptions difficult to decipher, but with

perseverance we were able to read most of the engravings.

Many of the unadorned headstones are completely covered in writing, all of

the inscriptions were incised with a variation of lettering used. Spelling

deviated from the normal in some cases.

Not many of the monuments were erected vertically, most of them are

horizontal, and approximately 1m X 2m in size and are made of limestone.

Numerous uninscribed mounds were located, concluding these to be famine graves.

The only overground vault contains the O'Donels of Newport House,

descendants of the famous Red Hugh. Situated in another part of the

cemetery, memorials of other relatives can be seen, some of them from

Castlebar.

Sources :

1 Knockavelly Glebe -

Ordnance Survey Field

Name Books 1838

Book 20 Parish of Burrishoole