What is recorded here

Killoonach, an ancient graveyard in Ballymartin, County Kilkenny, vanished when William Lalor of Grennan ordered it uprooted and levelled in 1840. Rude headstones and a slight elevation of soil are all that remain of the church and its buried dead. The land swallowed the memory of the place, leaving only a quiet ridge where generations once laid their dead to rest.

According to Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 104), ‘There was a very ancient church here, which the people call Killoonach (ch guttural). It stood in the “quarry field” close to the bounds of Ballinvalla. None of its walls remained in the memory of any one now living; but some rude head stones marked graves in the churchyard till 1840, when M. William Lalor, of Grennan, the owner of the land, had the place uprooted and levelled and the enclosing earthen fence removed. Except for a slight elevation of surface and the tell-tale verdure, the site of Killoonach church is now undistinquishable from the land surrounding it’. The precise location of the graveyard within the townland is unknown. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 17 May 2017

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