Grave concern as no space left in Rockchapel cemetery

Concerns are growing in Rockchapel, as efforts to find a site for a new cemetery have, to date, been unsuccessful. Stock Picture of headstones.

In an issue of grave concern, residents in one rural North Cork community have been told they will have to be buried in neighbouring counties due to a lack of space in existing graveyards.

Efforts to find a new space in the community in Rockchapel in North Cork have, as yet, been unsuccessful.

Unless there is a rare space left in a family plot, people who die in Rockchapel have, for a number of years, been interred in Newmarket, or at Mount Collins, Co. Limerick or Brosna, Co Kerry.

Jack Roche, a former county councillor and historian who lives in Rockchapel, said a number of sites previously surveyed as a potential location for a new graveyard were unsuitable.

"It's very upsetting to some families to see loved ones buried elsewhere. The council has been dragging its feet for a long time in resolving the issue," Mr Roche said.

The graveyard came into being due to rather unusual circumstances in the mid 1800s.

“A member of the Travelling community died and the family buried him over the wall in a field. Locals later wanted to dig him up and put him in a proper graveyard. But, instead, the landowner decided to donate the land to the community as a graveyard,” Mr Roche said.

The graveyard issue was raised at a meeting of the Kanturk/Mallow Municipal District Council by Fine Gael councillor John Paul O'Shea, who sought an update from officials on Rockchapel and also on the search for new graveyard space in the villages of Dromina and Kilbrin.

“Anyone who dies now from the Rockchapel area and has no family plot within the graveyard will be buried elsewhere. This is a very sensitive matter. They should be afforded the opportunity to be buried in the local graveyard. I know a few families in recent years who found it very hard to lay their loved ones to rest in another county,” Mr O'Shea said.

The council is hoping to finalise an agreement to extend the graveyard in Rockchapel and to acquire land in Dromina.

Meanwhile, plans are progressing to develop a columbarium in the graveyard in Cobh. This structure would house urns with the ashes of the deceased and would be the first in a Cork town.

Councillors representing the are were told that the request came from local funeral directors, who said there is a growing demand in the area for such a facility, which could be built in the town's Old Church Cemetery.

Páraig Lynch, municipal officer for the area, said plans will be drawn up and presented to local councillors in the coming weeks.

It's believed that the close proximity to the crematorium on Haulbowline Island is one of the reasons cremation has become increasingly popular in the greater Cobh area.