10/30/2015

Cruicetown Cemetery Conservation Committee Update


Old Drogheda Society

 
The Cruicetown Cemetery Conservation Committee Annual Memorial Mass will be held in St John the Baptist Church, Nobber, County Meath on Friday 6th November 2015 at 8pm. 

The Annual General Meeting of Cruicetown Cemetery Conservation Committee will also be held on Friday 6th November in Nobber Community Hall, immediately after the Annual Memorial Mass.

Cruicetown Cemetery Conservation Committee and St John's Old Cemetery Restoration Committee formed - following a public meeting held in Nobber Community Hall in April 2004 - with Nobber Parish Priest Fr Seamus Houlihan, to organise the ongoing maintenance, preservation and historical documentation of the two old cemeteries in the parish.

As part of this historical documentation, the Discovery Programme has carried out studies of both cemeteries. 

Cruicetown Cemetery Conservation Committee has initiated a continuous programme of restoration and conservation of the total site in consultation with the relevant authorities; OPW and a private archaeologist, David Sweetman, and County Heritage Officer, Dr. Loreto Guinan. 
 
The continuous conservation & maintenance of the total site has included the reinstatement of external walling (with security fence over) and internal peripheral gravel path, repair / re-erection of Abbe James Lynch memorial, carved Celtic cross.

Other work carried out includes; a survey by the National Discovery Programme Team; its publication on Internet & copies to County Library, a new entrance to facilitate disabled and funeral access and the erection of pedestrian entrance, stone piers and walling at entrance off  public road.

Further work has included the erection of Interpretative Panel listing all known burials, monuments and layout. 

Cruicetown church and cemetery is situated in the townland of Cruicetown,  west of Nobber Village, off county road 136. 

The parish of Cruicetown includes the townlands of Altmush, Cruicetown, Moydorragh and Newtown; it is now part of Nobber Parish. Amalgamation around 1700. 

Maurice Cruise, an Anglo-Norman, got possession of substantial land holdings in Morgallion following the Norman invasion. 

The church, built in the late 12th or early 13th centuries: surrounded by a dry-stone built wall, probably erected after the 1815 Act.  The church contains a Cruise vault in the church; in the cemetery a fine carved stone High Cross (1688) and the remains of a possible bell tower.

Adjacent to the site is a Motte and Bailey and  traces of a substantial settlement.

It is a site of archaeological and historical importance, on an elevated site.  It is a tourist attraction with  numerous visitors and many people tracing family genealogy, from Ireland & abroad.

To contact the group phone Oliver Ward Secretary 046 90 5 22 36 or 086 33 22 821, email cruicetown@hotmail.com or see www.facebook.com/cruicetowncemeteryconservationcommittee 


Drogheda Museum Millmount,

History, Archaeology & Heritage, 

Governor's House,

Millmount,

Drogheda,

Co. Louth, Ireland,

0419833097

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