Graveyard

The National Monuments Service's description

Surrounded by tillage. According to Dan Byran (1966, vol. 19, 59-60) the graveyard of Holdenstown was situated on a little elevation, just over the stream that divides Dunbell from Holdenstown, about opposite the “avenue” that runs from near Prospect House into the fields towards Holdenstown: It was quite small, unfenced, but surrounded by a ring of old, large, whitethorn bushes. It is understood to have disappeared recently during land reclamation’. There was an application to demolish the 'mound' made to the Land Project Office, Dept. of Agriculture in 1959 (OPW Correspondence, February and April 1959), however, satellite imagery (Digitalglobe, viewed 21 September 2021) suggests that the 'mound', possibly the remains of a church (KK024-020001-), and the immediate area surrounding it, were not levelled.
Carrigan (1905, vol. 4, 290) notes that Dunbell had belonged to Jerpoint Abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, after which it became a civil parish. Byran (ibid.) suggests that as a monastic grange it is likely to have had a chapel, which could have been at the location of the graveyard in Holdenstown.
An outer curvilinear enclosure (KK024-020003-), possibly an ecclesiastical enclosure, has been identified as a cropmark.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 21 September 2021

References

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.

Bryan, D. 1966 Dunbell. Old Kilkenny Review 19, 59-60.