5000 people buried in Famine graveyard to be honoured

The estimated 5000 people buried in the Famine graveyard in Mullingar will be remembered at an annual ceremony on Wednesday June 28, at 7.30pm.

The commemoration ceremony began in 1994 at the time of the 150th anniversary of the Famine. It involves a short ecumenical prayer service and the blessing of the graves of those buried there.

The ceremony is organised by a voluntary committee, whose members over the years have included Millie Walsh, Des Walsh, the late Christina Mohan Fagan and members of the Mullingar Royal Canal Community Group, including Eoin Corrigan.

As well as prayers and the blessing, the ceremony also usually includes a talk on the history of the Famine in Mullingar and Westmeath. In recent years the talk has been given by Seamus O’Brien of the Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society, and that is the case this year too.

The late Micheál O Conluin of Castlepollard (chairman of the Westmeath Archaeological and Historical Society) was also a regular speaker at the ceremony.

The local Edmund Rice Committee, under chairman the late Br Farrell and including the then Fr Nulty, now bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, Tony Cotter, Christy Neary, Noel O’Connor, Br Hannigan, all deceased, and Seamus O’Brien as secretary, renovated and restored the graveyard.

A commemorative event has taken place every year since, organised by the late Christina Mohan Fagan and latterly by Des Walsh.

The graveyard known as the Famine graveyard opened in 1849 on land leased by Sir Richard Levinge of Knockdrin Castle. It served the nearby Mullingar Union Workhouse.

Many of those buried there in the first year were victims of Famine related diseases, and also of a major cholera pandemic that hit Ireland in 1849.

The graveyard remained in use until 1890. Those buried there in post-Famine times were ‘paupers’ from the workhouse. Bodies were transported on handcarts from the workhouse along the canal supply towpath to the graveyard.

During the cholera pandemic, teenage boys in the workhouse were making up to 16 coffins a day.