Conwal Parish Church Graveyard

Graveyard associated with Letterkenny Church of Ireland church\Conwal Church of Ireland church (see 40501199), originally laid out c. 1636 and containing a collection of gravemarkers from seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Earliest legible grave dated 1650, latest dated 1939 or 1959. Collection of upstanding and recumbent gravemarkers, some in metal railed or chained enclosures. Site bounded by rubble limestone walls with rubble coping over. Pedestrian gateway to the west having a pair of rubble stone gate piers (on square-plan) with rubble coping over and with wrought-iron gate. Gateway to the south having a pair of ashlar gate piers (on square-plan) having cut stone coping over, and with a pair of wrought-iron gates, and with segmental-headed wrought-iron overarch linking piers; flight of cut stone steps from gateway to site to elevated graveyard ground level. Located to the north –west of the centre of Letterkenny and to the south of church.

This historic graveyard is associated with Letterkenny Church of Ireland church\Conwal Church of Ireland church (see 40501199), and was originally laid out during the seventeenth century. It contains a number of interesting gravemarkers dating from c. 1650 to 1939\59, some in elaborate metal railed enclosures, and some of modest artistic merit. The earlier gravemarkers are generally recumbent, many with interesting symbols of mortally including skull and cross bone motifs. The earliest graveslabs (see RMP DG053-043003- and DG053-043004-) date to the first half of the seventeenth, including one commemorating the resting place of Isabel Smith wife of John Boyd of Letterkenny (1671?). The later gravemarkers are generally upstanding, a number displaying classical influences such as tapered pedestal and obelisk-type markers. A number of individuals of local historic interest are interred here including the Boyd family (see above) of nearby Ballymacool and later also of Gortlee, Count Redmond O'Hanlon (1640-1681) a celebrated seventeenth century highway man, and the Revd. Dr. John Kinnear, a Presbyterian minister in Letterkenny, who was M.P. for County Donegal and carried the banner for Tenants Rights in the 1880s, amongst other gravemarkers of Protestant families dating from the mid seventeenth century. This graveyard is an important part of the setting of the church, and is an integral element of the built heritage and social history of the local area. The gateways to site, particularly the fine gateway to the south with ashlar gate piers, wrought-iron linking arch, and flight of cut stone steps, as well as the simple rubble stone boundary wall to site, all add to the setting and complete the context.