Mayo memories: Clocks stopped for days when a person died

By Tom Gillespie

PART TWO

SIXTEEN years ago a very interesting article appeared in the 2008 Castlebar Parish Magazine, featuring the old cemetery in the county town and burial customs in olden days.

There are still many people in Castlebar who can recall Jim Ormsby driving McGarry’s horse-drawn hearse bearing remains to the church and then to the old cemetery on Westport Road. He would have on a hard black hat and a white sash across his shoulders. The horse would be bedecked with black and white plums on its head.

It was customary when the remains were being removed from a house that the coffin would be placed on two chairs outside and prayers recited before proceeding to the church.

The Requiem Mass would be, in many cases, a Solemn High Mass, with a number of priests participating, which would include of master of ceremonies.

The funerals did not always take place immediately following the Mass, with one o’clock being the normal time for funerals to leave the church for the cemetery.

It was also the norm that the remains would leave the church by the side door nearest the sacristy in Castlebar’s Church of the Holy Rosary, it being in more recent times that they began to leave by the main door.

When the cortege reached the cemetery it would take the longest route to the grave, it being said: “The shortest way to the church and the longest way to the grave.” It was also customary to walk the last part of the ‘last mile’ with the remains on its journey to the cemetery.

Unbaptised infants were not buried in the main cemetery but in in an unconsecrated plot nearby, a practice thankfully now long abolished. The remains of children who had not been confirmed were not brought to the church either but went from their homes directly to the cemetery.

The women mourners dressed in black, not alone for the obsequies but for a period of six months after, during which time social activities by family members were suspended. The men folk used to wear a black patch in the shape of a diamond on their shoulders as a sign of mourning.

There were many stories told of various customs and events that took place at wakes and funerals.

Some years ago the Castlebar Development Association and FÁS undertook a heritage project on the old cemetery and funerals.

One of the topics a number of people were interviewed about was burial customs.

One of those people was Annie Walsh, aged 97, from Davitt’s Terrace. She recalled the burial of her father and mother in a spot on top of the hill in the old cemetery that her father said was the site of a little chapel, which he had heard his father and grandfather talk about.

Annie recalled seeing a funeral coming down Spencer Street and Castle Street on its way to the church with the coffin being carried by a number of men in relays because the deceased’s family hadn't the money to hire a hearse.

She told of an undertaker who used to get coffins from the workhouse, which he would cover with black cloth if it were for an adult person and white for a young person.

She said that she had heard it said that on November 2 (All Souls Day) people would leave buckets of water beside graves in case the poor souls might be looking for a drink.

Another interviewee, Pat Quigley, Snugboro, spoke of the practice of stopping the clock when a person died and it would remain stopped for at least three days.

It was not uncommon for relays of men to carry coffins from long distances to the old cemetery. They did not take short cuts as the custom was the longest way to the cemetery. The chairs on which a coffin was placed outside a house were laid flat once the coffin was removed from them.

Chas. Guthrie, another man interviewed, recalled coffins having to be taken out through upstairs windows where stairways were too narrow to get the coffin down.

He also spoke of some of the undertakers in Castlebar over the years - Feeney’s, Rush Street; Murphy’s, Spencer Street; Dwyer’s, James Chambers and John P. McCormack, Ellison Street; Durcan’s and Hoban’s, Main Street; Moran’s and Coady’s, Linenhall Street, and Kilcoyne’s, Thomas Street.

Chas. worked for a time for Joe McGing, who had his monumental works close to the Guthrie home at the top of McHale Road, erecting tombstones in the old cemetery. Rabbett’s Furniture Store is built on the site of McGing’s monumental works.

In 2021 members of Castlebar Tidy Towns undertook a project to clean up and paint the crucifixion monument at the entrance to the old cemetery in the town.

Concluded.