Jerpoint Abbey Graveyard

Jerpoint Abbey Graveyard holds stones for Mary Folles, dead 1807 at 58, and James Cahill, dead 1847 at 58, beside a fallen slab that tells passengers to pray for the man beneath it. The abbey ruins still keep a long chancel and high altar, while families from Jerpoint, Thomastown and nearby towns trusted this ground with young and old alike. To walk among those names is to hear death spoken plainly, not decorated, and to remember that abundance of life is also abundance of loss.