Memorial service to commemorate those buried in Mayo graveyard
by John Melvin
THE persistence and hard work of the St Mary’s Hospital Castlebar Heritage Society has finally paid off with a Commemorate Memorial Service which will be held next Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Aglish Graveyard site in Castlebar.
Retired Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, will lead the commemorative service which is open to the public and will be addressed by members of the St Mary’s Castlebar Heritage Society Committee including chairman, Anthony O’Boyle, who has put huge time and effort into ensuring those buried at the Aglish site will begiven formal recognition.
Dr. Fidelma Creaven, also a member of the St Mary’s Heritage Society and another strong advocate for the recognition of those buried in what became mass grave who were former patients of what was then known as Castlebar Lunatic Asylum, which later became known as St Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital Castlebar.
Brian Donnelly, Archivist attached to the National Archives along with Alan Dillon, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment will be among those who will speak at the service at Aglish Graveyard which is situated on the NS opposite Castlebar Fire Station.
This project which was undertaken by the St Mary’s Heritage has been given the up support of the HSE and Mayo County Council.
A lot of work has been carried out in clearing and marking the site where it estimated that the number of individuals buried there runs into the high hundreds, reflecting similar burial practices in asylum graveyards throughout Ireland during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In an article in The Connacht Telegraph, reporter, Tom Shiel made an interesting observation at the time when he noted that e this burial ground is located in Castlebar town, those buried there came from all parts of Mayo.
He also noted that for the past few years, the St. Mary’s Heritage Society, a small group of former employees from the Mayo Mental Health Service, under the chairmanship of Anthony O’Boyle, have been attempting to upgrade this burial area and develop a fitting memorial to the many buried there.
Former members of staff, including Matt Shaw, Tom Scahill and Gerry Neary, at their own expense, cleared away this area and with financial assistance from the HSE, a plaque was erected and unveiled to the memory of those buried there at a religious ceremony on July 31, 2014.
Aglish Graveyard restoration project is an effort to restoring the broken links in the history for Mayo people and beyond. This initiative represents a first opportunity for the community in County Mayo, and beyond, to collectively remember those individuals whose lives and deaths remained largely unrecognised for generations.
Supported by Mayo County Council and the Health Service Executive, the Society’s objective is to honour the past while preserving the future.
Central to the project is the restoration of dignity to those buried at Aglish Graveyard and ensuring their memory is acknowledged and preserved for future generations. patients buried there were not taken to their communities by their families for a variety of reasons.
Records would indicate most families did not reclaim the remains of relatives for burial in their home communities due to a combination of stigma, fear, poverty, and limited transport options.
Those are the realities that shaped life in Ireland during that period. The Society believes that those buried in Aglish deserve to be remembered with dignity and respect, just like those resting in any other cemeteries in County Mayo.
The hope is that they will be formally included in community commemorations such as Cemetery Sunday and recognised by statutory authorities as part of Mayo’s historic graveyard heritage and placed on an equal footing with their fellow citizens in every other graveyard in Co Mayo.
Ultimately, the restoration of Aglish Graveyard is about reconnecting the people of Mayo with an often-overlooked part of their history, honouring those who came before us, and ensuring their memory is preserved for generations to come.