Abbeyleix service will honour workhouse dead

A SPECIAL ceremony in Laois this weekend will honour children and adults buried in unmarked graves near a former workhouse.

A memorial headstone and limestone seat have just been installed in time for the poignant prayer service, which will start at 7pm on Sunday 18 May in the grounds of Abbeyleix Community Nursing Unit (CNU), formerly the district hospital.

Parish priest Fr Paddy Byrne and Canon Patrick Harvey will officiate at the service in memory of Laois famine victims, who died in the Abbeyleix workhouse and were subsequently interred in a burial plot at the rear of the CNU.

The event will mark Irish Famine Commemoration Day (IFCD), which is held annually nationwide on the third Sunday in May.

The Tonduff Cillín Committee, which organised the Abbeyleix project, received permission from the HSE to create a memorial site beneath a beautiful native oak tree, which is protected by a lifelong preservation order.

The peaceful new memorial includes a paved area with a limestone reflection seat, together with a headstone for a six-year-old boy who was interred in the burial plot almost 140 years ago.

Local historian and committee member Noel Burke said there is an open invitation to the public to attend the ceremony, which will finally honour all those buried behind the former workhouse. 

He said: “We hope that as many people as possible will attend and participate in this commemoration.” At the prayer service, renowned Portlaoise writer and poet Denise Curtin will recite one of the poems she wrote about the resting place in Abbeyleix.

The Abbeyleix choir will perform at the service while Michael Creagh, who recently retired from his role at Donaghmore Workhouse, will give a short introduction to the famine period from 1845.

The Tonduff Cillín Committee thanked the HSE management team, which not only offered the location but also organised a construction team to lay beautiful patio slabs with brick surround, while ensuring that the site is wheelchair accessible.

Noel said: “The person in charge of Abbeyleix CNU, Deirdre Phelan, was also very helpful to us throughout this period of organising, planning and agreeing the final site location, as well as collectively with management settling on the final wording that appears on the memorial stone. Local man Michael Martin translated the English text into Irish, for which we were grateful.” 

The committee also liaised with Laois Heritage Officer Thomas Carolan and an archaeologist, who supervised the digging of a foundation for the memorial stone and seat.

Car parking around the hospital site will be restricted on Sunday evening, so people are advised to park along the Ballinakill road.

The project follows a generous response to a fundraiser set up by the committee on 15 March with a target of €500. Nearly €650 was donated within days. The excess will be used to plant wildflower seeds and maintain the burial ground into the future.

The memorial headstone bears the name of John Fitzgerald (6), who died from hunger at the workhouse in May 1886 and who will now symbolise and honour all those buried at the site, most of whose names are unknown. The site continued to be used as an unofficial burial ground for decades afterwards.

John’s body was disposed of in the graveyard pit or ‘shank yard’ at the rear of the present day Abbeyleix CNU, where up to 2,000 babies, children and adults are believed to be have been buried between 1842 and 1962.

Noel said: “Unfortunately, 183 years have passed without any official recognition of the site ever having been used as a burial ground for the poor and destitute people who died in the Abbeyleix workhouse. Thankfully, this is all about to change this year.”