Burial ground

The National Monuments Service's description

Named 'Burial Ground' only on the OS 1:2500 plan (surveyed 1912-16); no visible trace now survives. The burial ground was located c. 260m to the SSW of Glenarde House (now the Ardilaun Hotel). Glenarde House was built around 1840 and for many years was lived in by a family named Lynch (Henry 2021, 78‒9). It was purchased, in 1862, by Henry Sadlier Persse who owned large estates in county Galway and operated an extensive distillery business in the town (ibid.). He married Eleanor Alice Seymour on 13 June of that year and they had ten children (Kearney 2016, 215). The early death of their third child, John Beauchamp, of meningitis on 12 January 1877 (aged 5½ years) may have prompted the family to open this private burial ground for his remains, close to their family home. Other members of the extended Persse family had similar private burial grounds in the county, at Castleboy (GA114-046002-) and Moyode Demesne (GA096-143----). The evidence, though circumstantial, would suggest that John Beauchamp Persse was the first internment on the Glenarde site. Additional notes included in the register of St Nicholas’ Church record the burial at Glenarde of four other members of the Persse family: a daughter, Matilda Theodora (d. 16 August 1881), Henry Sadlier Persse’s sister, Henrietta Burton Persse (d. 3 October 1886), a daughter, Noel Marjorie (d. 1 May 1888) and Henry Sadlier Persse (d. 11 March 1899) (RCB P0519.01.02, 96, 106, 110, 118; Kearney 2016, 215‒6).
The Glenarde residence was sold in 1922 to Patrick Boland and this family lived here until 1961 when the property was acquired by Mr and Mrs Patrick D. Ryan who began its conversion into a hotel (Henry 2021, 78‒9). It seems reasonable to conclude that when the adjoining lands were sold to a developer for the erection of a housing estate the burial ground was built over following the removal of the remains and their reinterment in a vault in Bohermore Cemetery (Grave No. K. Vault 10; Kearney 2016, 328).

Compiled by: Paul Walsh

Date of upload: 5 May 2022

References

Henry, W. 2021 Persse’s Galway whiskey. Galway. William Henry.

Kearney, G. 2016 The Persse family of County Galway. Genealogy and history, 1554‒1964. Oranmore. G. Kearney.

RCB P0519.01.02 Representative Church Body Library. St Nicholas' Church, Galway: register of baptisms 1838‒1878, marriages 1838‒1845 & burials 1838‒1964.