Old Burgage Graveyard Blessington
If you want to find the original old Burgage Graveyard go south from the town past the new cemetery. Keep straight on the old Wicklow Gap road for 600 metres or so and the old graveyard is on your right with the ruins of a tower house in the centre of it. It is located on high ground, which overlooked the River Liffey not far below it. Now the lake waters lap against it and there is a danger that storm water could undermine what’s left of the old tower.
When we look out at the expanse of this new and beautiful lake we should think of the dead farmland that lies beneath it. For generations farm families made a living here in difficult times. In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries farmers had come together to fight the stranglehold of their landlords. All over the country they agitated for a fair rent. There was general disruption. In order to pacify the country the English Government established the Land Commission which could lower rents and eventually enable the farmers to buy out their land over a specified term of years. The repayments they made were generally less than the rents they had been paying. The day the farmer obtained freehold of his fields was a very proud day indeed. Now, within a lifetime in the late 1930’s their own government was taking that land back from them and flooding it.
But the rising waters also affected the old graveyard and tower house that were there for many centuries on this former monastic site, now misleadingly known as Burgage.
Burgages, or towns, were introduced by the Normans towards the end of the 12th or early 13th Century. Burgage plots were long narrow strips of land leading from the main street of what was to be a new town. The burgher built his house, grew crops for his family on it or used it in a trade or business. He paid rent and had certain rights. Up to now we see no evidence of Burgage plots in the area in and around the old graveyard and yet the name is still with us. At this remove it is not possible to give a plausible reason as to why. What, if any, use the Normans made of this monastic site we do not know. To the Irish it had been known as ‘Domhnach Imleach’, meaning the great church in a marsh. The name Domhnach would suggest it was founded by followers of St. Patrick any time in the 6th century or later. That the old monastic settlement continued on into medieval times is evidenced by the numerous grave slabs and crosses. But the life of the old graveyard had come to an abrupt end in the late 1930’s. It ceased taking burials and bodies interred there over centuries had to be exhumed and moved to a new cemetery to make way for the coming of the Poluaphouca Reservoir whose purpose was to provide water for the city of Dublin and also generate electricity. Crosses, grave slabs and headstones were moved with the re interments
Until then it had been a most picturesque site. An artist’s impression shows the curtilage wall, the old tower the foundations of an old church, the high cross; in the distance are the mountains. Some headstones are very artistic. Other graves had a rock for marker, some a wooden cross; many had nothing. Below it flowed on in silence the united King’s River and River Liffey. It was a tranquil, restful place. Close to St. Mark’s Cross was a Holy Well. It looks now that earth was bulldozed over the whole burial site. It might be possible to locate and restore St Mark’s Well some day.
