‘Massive’ 15 foot headstone sparks calls for limit to be introduced

A FORMER lord mayor of Cork is to ask the city council to cap the height and width of headstones used in graveyards.

Councillor Joe O’Callaghan is to put forward a motion at the next meeting of Cork City Council, after a 15.5ft high, 20ft wide gravestone was erected at Kilcully Cemetery, on the northside of the city.

“It dwarfs everything else in the graveyard by a mile and it is completely out of character with what is recognised as a showpiece graveyard,” the Fine Gael Cllr said.

The gravestone is so big that it required the use of a crane and scaffolding to put it in place.

It was erected at Kilcully Cemetery three days ago.

Mr O’Callaghan said he was informed the headstone cost nearly €50,000.

“I can understand that families would want to honour their loved ones and put up a nice headstone to remember them, but this is simply too large and there are health and safety implications,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

He said he inspected the headstone and was concerned that it had been put on a plinth “of quite modest proportions.”

“Kilcully is a quite open graveyard and it can get very windy up there. This is a massive monument and I’d be worried that it could topple over if there was a severe wind,” the councillor said.

He added that he had asked the city council to send out engineers to check the stability of the headstone.

“I know there were a lot of other people who made calls to the city council on this matter,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

He will urge the city council to introduce new byelaws which will provide a limit on the size of headstones. “If we don’t do something we will have people outdoing each other, and who knows where that will end.”