Council should dig in to heritage value of historical graveyards

CALLS have been made to reopen historical cemeteries that have been closed to the public in recent years in a bid to maximise their heritage value.

The request was made by Cllr Paddy Meade at November’s Laytown/ Bettystown Municipal District meeting where he also suggested the council offer a genealogy research service for those seeking to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.

He made the comments after a presentation of the county Meath Heritage Strategy 2023 - 2030.

"Dublin and Cork County Councils advertise family history research that is done in conjunction with the library staff, maybe that is something that can be looked at, it seems to be something that might get people interested,” said Cllr Meade.

"The council own a number of graveyards with the right of way being blocked off in recent years and the public can no longer enter despite being owned by the council.

"We have a number of old graveyards of great historical value. Apart from a group coming to you with a proposal to do up a graveyard is there anything more that can be done?"

In response a council official said:

"The heritage council have community heritage grant schemes which they launch at the end of the year with a closing date for February or March so that will be coming out soon and I will circulate that to the members. Those grants are for up to 15k. The other main route of funding is through the council and we have a number of community grant schemes. Through the community department itself, there are funding avenues available under the heritage remit.

"Graveyards are hugely important there is a huge amount of information in them that is probably nowhere else, we do a lot of work with groups on them. There is a grant scheme every year that is administered to the maintenance and cutting grass, around 40 groups get money through that every year.

"Librares get lots of queries from people all around the world in relation to genealogy so that is certainly something that is ongoing as well."

Cllr Meade raised his concerns about the location of record books for each local cemetery where details of the decreased are recorded.

"Caretakers in cemeteries fill in a book when someone passes away and when it is full they hand it in to the council.

"There are only five in the library, one is from Mornington and it’s a really interesting book, it has people who died during World War. There is probably 40 0r 50 in the council system somewhere and I think it's important we know where they are.

"The heritage potential in those books is enormous."

The meeting was told that Planning had been approved for the county archive project and when everything was registered and categorised they will be made available to the public."