Graveyard

The National Monuments Service's description

Located in an area of lowling, damp grassland in the shadow of Ben Bulben, just SE of the mouth of the Drumcliff River, where it flows into Drumcliff Bay.
This graveyard encompasses a roughly L-shaped area, enclosed by a mortared stone wall and bordered at W by the main Sligo-Donegal road (N 15). St. Columba’s Church of Ireland church (see NIAH record no. 32305001), an elegant limestone building, constructed between 1805-09, stands in the tree-shaded NE section of the graveyard, surrounded by a high density of formal inscribed graveslabs, headstones, box tombs and table tombs dating variously from the early 1800’s to the 2000’s. In the SE section of the graveyard, a few informal, uninscribed stone gravemarkers, some set in N-S rows, can be seen amidst the formal grave plots.
Several 20th-century headstones, especially evident in the W section of the graveyard, are in the form of ‘Celtic crosses’, in imitation of the medieval high cross (SL008-084004-) which stands on the NW boundary wall. The high cross is one of the most visually engaging of several monuments which serve to remind the visitor that the graveyard is on the site of an early medieval monastery: a plain cross (SL008-084005-) stands on the line of the boundary wall to W of the high cross; an early medieval cross-slab (SL008-084010-) has been reused as a gravemarker; a high cross base (SL008-084008-) is located immediately S of the church, and two high cross shaft fragments (SL008-084015-) are within the church, and 40m to NW of the graveyard there is a round tower (SL008-084003-).
The graveyard is also celebrated for the grave of the poet William Butler Yeats, the unadorned headstone engraved simply with the poet’s own famous injunction: 'Cast a cold Eye on Life on Death, Horseman, pass by.'

Attached images:
SL008-084005-_01.JPG Graveyard viewed from W
SL008-084005-_02.JPG St. Columba's church in the N section of graveyard, viewed from NW
SL008-084005-_03.JPG N section of graveyard
SL008-084005-_04.JPG 19th-century tombs
SL008-084005-_05.JPG detail of 19th-century box tomb
SL008-084005-_06.JPG informal, uninscribed gravemarkers
SL008-084005-_07.JPG 20th century 'celtic crosses' in W section of graveyard
SL008-084005-_08.JPG grave of W. B. Yeats

Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy

Date of upload: 3 November 2020