Grave doubts about cemetery

RESIDENTS in a seaside town are still boycotting their local cemetery, saying they could never rest in peace there.

The number of burials at Riverstown cemetery in Tramore, Co Waterford, is still well below anticipated, a year after the cemetery first opened.

In the past weeks, one man who was buried there last Christmas has been exhumed and buried elsewhere. His widow applied for the exhumation, saying the graveyard was too far from her home in Tramore and she was not happy with the way the graveyard looked. Now local funeral directors, James and Ursula Falconer, have added their voices to the campaign to have something done at the graveyard to make it more appealing. “It wouldn’t cost a fortune to make the graveyard look a bit more like a place of final rest,” said Mrs Falconer.

In March of this year, Fianna Fail’s, Dan Cowman, focused attention on the new graveyard, saying that more and more elderly residents in particular in Tramore are booking plots miles outside of the town.

“We tried to get an alternative, two acre site but that would have cost in or around €600,000. The council owned the site in Riverstown and spent around €100,000 developing it. I’ve heard a lot of people saying they don’t want to be buried there. Only time will tell, I suppose,” he said.

The Town Council says there have been several burials there since the cemetery opened late last year and the cemetery’s appeal will grow when building work nearby ends. The local authority was forced to look at alternatives two years ago when the cemetery adjoining the Holy Cross Church began to fill.