| The first object of interest we passed today was a Roman Catholic burying ground – about a mile from Oughterard – bristling with grave stones, – which consisted principally of unlettered slabs, dug out of the adjacent land, and set up on end. The usual distinctive mark of Irish Roman Catholic burying Grounds was here, namely, a roofless Chapel, its sharp gable ends pointing, as it were, with inanimate fingers to a better world. These buildings are generally composed of rude unhewn stone, except the Chancel end, in which there is usually a narrow Gothic Window, with roughly chiselled lintels and Mullions. I have no doubt these Chapels were all unroofed either at the rebellion of 1641, or at the Revolution of 1688, and have so continued to the present hour, – a silent reproach to the descendants of the Saxon invaders. They generally stand in the centre of the Grave Yards, in many of which interments have ceased and the fences around them have been allowed to become level with the ground. [pp. 91-92] |
