KilkennyGraveyards explores burial places & traditions

If you have ancestral connections to Kilkenny, you might like to check out and follow KilkennyGraveyards.blogspot.com, a site which, as its name suggests, focuses on graveyards and burial places in that county.

It includes, but goes beyond, the transcription of headstones and memorials, exploring everything to do with burial traditions in the county. Stained glass window memorials are noted, for example, as are the individual styles and changing designs of stone masons; clues to the status and aspirations of the deceased or bereaved are examined in the position, quality and eulogies of memorials; and stories are told of the lives of some of those interred or commemorated in the burial sites.

KilkennyGraveyards was established more than three years ago by two experienced and respected Irish genealogists, Mary Casteleyn and Bernie Kirwan. You'll find more information about their approach to exploring graveyards in their first post, here. Since then, more than 60 well-illustrated features have been uploaded to the website, most of them with detailed observations about a particular graveyard, histories of individuals buried there, and an account of the surviving memorials (including transcriptions).

The most recent post, about Tifeaghna graveyard (RC parish of Sheffin, PLU Urlingford), is a good example of how Mary and Bernie examine and research a burial site, and how other researchers with current or ancestral family from Kilkenny will enjoy getting to know the blog.