Graveyard in Rathdown Upper

In the early seventeenth century this graveyard which was associated with St Crispin's Cell (WI008-012001-) was cleared and the disinterred bodies were 'buried in one pit at the east end' (O'Flanagan 1928, 33-5). In 1827 a local man of 97 years of age gave the following account about the graveyard; 'The small Chapel or cell of St. Crispin [WI008-012001-]. It is entered by a porch, placed at the west end and was lighted by one circular-headed window; it is now unroofed and the walls clothed with ivy; the adjacent ground does not appear to have been used as a cemetery, although the body of a seaman, washed on shore near Rathdown Castle was interred here. The castle [WI008-011----], St. Crispin’s Cell [WI008-012001-], and the parish church, were within short distances of each other and of the village [WI008-011002-]. Upon the final deletion of the village, Col. [Charles] Tarrant the proprietor, razed the tomb stones, disinterred the bones in the church yard and recommitted all the earth again in one large pit dug for the purpose, after which he erased the church itself’ (Wright 1827, 19-20). In 1838 the Ordnance Survey Letters recorded that 'No one in the neighbourhood of Rathdown now remembers anything of the church thus razed, but they remember that the bones were all dug up from the graveyard of the little church [WI008-012001-] of St. Crispin and buried in one pit at the east end, by some bad man' (O'Flanagan 1928, 40). Compiled by: Claire Breen Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 26 July 2018

A local ancient tomb; wider significance not recorded.