Grave Yard, Ballybrada, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Burial Grounds
On a west-facing slope in County Tipperary, enclosed by a stone wall standing over two metres high, there is a graveyard that tells its story almost entirely through what is absent.
There is no ornamentation, no carved angels, no inscribed verses. The roughly thirty-five limestone headstones are plain to the point of severity, aligned in north-south rows and facing east, many of them now half-consumed by brambles. That plainness is the point: this is a Quaker burial ground, and the simplicity of the markers reflects the beliefs of the Society of Friends, a Protestant denomination that rejected outward ceremony and the marking of social distinction even in death.
The graveyard was established in 1738 by a local Quaker named John Fennell, who set aside part of his own estate at Ballybrada so that members of the Society of Friends in the area would have a dedicated place of burial. The headstones that survive date mostly from the 1860s to the 1880s, with some earlier examples from the 1830s, and the family names Fennell and Going appear among them. A church once stood close to the western boundary of the enclosure; it appears on Ordnance Survey maps from both 1840 and 1906, but no physical trace of it remains on the ground today. The interior of the roughly rectangular enclosure, which measures approximately 26 metres north to south and 55 metres east to west, is planted with trees along its inner edges, and a small cluster of yew trees, traditionally associated with burial grounds across these islands, grows towards the centre of the eastern half.
The entrance is a flat-lintelled gateway with an iron gate set near the northern end of the west wall. The site is currently neglected, with brambles covering much of the ground, and earth has banked up against the inner faces of the north and east walls over time. Visitors should expect an overgrown interior rather than a maintained one, and the high enclosing wall gives the place a quietly secluded quality that suits its history.
