Graveyard, Crookhaven, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Burial Grounds
At the tip of one of West Cork's most remote peninsulas, a rectangular enclosure of stone wall holds a graveyard that quietly frames a Church of Ireland building at its centre.
The arrangement is straightforward enough in description, yet there is something arresting about a Protestant church sitting at the heart of a burial ground at the very edge of Irish land, where Crookhaven harbour opens towards the Atlantic and the nearest town of any size is a long drive away.
The headstones and at least one chest tomb, a type of raised rectangular monument popular among those of some means, date from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth. This was a period when Crookhaven still mattered as a working harbour, a place where ships called in for provisions and mail before or after the Atlantic crossing. The Church of Ireland presence here reflects the Protestant merchant and maritime community that gave the village much of its commercial life during that era. The graveyard sits on the northern side of the peninsula, sheltered slightly from the prevailing south-westerlies, enclosed within its stone walls in a manner common to ecclesiastical sites across Munster.