Buried in a pauper’s plot, Mary deserves to be remembered
Because of Covid, just a small gathering attended the Requiem Mass in Aglish, Co. Waterford.
Ailbe, or Alice as she was christened, Fenton married my uncle Jerry Twomey and they lived at Kilcor, Castlelyons, the ancestral acres of the Twomey clan.
My uncle died in 2012, but long before that Ailbe and himself had bought a grave in the cemetery at Aglish, where the Fenton family have been buried for many years.
They were a very private couple, but dedicated to each other and madly in love. In actual fact, after Uncle Jerry died, Auntie Ailbe was never the same, she just pined away -wanting to be with the love of her life.
On the day of her funeral, I quoted a verse of Brendan O Brien’s big hit of 1966, Together Again;
In life, and in death, I knew they wanted to be always ‘together again’ and so they are in a picturesque cemetery in west Waterford. It was so different for James O’Sullivan and his wife Mary.
James was born in the early 1860s and after working as an unpaid ‘Monitor’ (apprentice) Teacher, he went on to qualify as a fully fledged National Teacher. He got a teaching post at Britway National School in the parish of Castlelyons - coincidentally, the school attended by the Twomeys of Klcor.
In 1900, James married Mary, a daughter of William Roche, a shopkeeper in the village of Castlelyons. The couple then lived in the teacher’s house adjacent to the school in Britway.
James taught in turbulent and historic times - through the First World War, Irish War of Independence and then the bitter Civil War.
In July, 1924, at the age of 63, James O’Sullivan died after a short illness, he had suffered from asthma with several years. He was buried in Gortroe cemetery, though no headstone or marker indicates his final resting place.
His widow, Mary, then aged 57, had to vacate the teacher’s residence. She moved to Dublin where she managed to obtain accommodation in the Widows’ Home run by the Sisters of Charity in Belvedere Place.
Here, Mary O’Sullivan spent the last 31 years of her life. She died in 1955 at the age of 88.
Through all those years ‘in exile’ in Dublin, she always kept up contact with her old neighbours ‘on the banks of the Bride’ in Castlelyons.
In one letter, she mentioned that she had buried ‘poor Jimmy (her husband) with my parents in Gortroe (cemetery)’ whilst another family member was interred in Monanimy cemetery, near Killavullen.
Mary was a deeply religious lady and the saving of her eternal soul was of utmost importance to her. She regularly sent stipends to the clergy in Castlelyons for Masses to be offered for her husband and her parents.
When James had died in 1924, she presumably had him buried with her parents in Gortroe, on the basis and expectation that when she herself died, she would also be interred there. Little did she think that faraway Dublin would be her home for decades. In Gortroe cemetery, there are no headstones to any Roche family but there are several Leahy stones - Mary’s mother was Elizabeth Leahy.
As time went by and Mary settled into her life of retirement in the Widows’ Home, she continually gave money to different charities, religious orders, and other ‘good causes’. In one letter to an old neighbour, she confides that when her time to depart this world comes, she had arranged to be buried in Dublin rather than with her husband. She went on in that same letter to state that she looked forward to being interred ‘with the elite in Glasnevin’- a lofty ambition indeed!
Life was comfortable for Mary in Dublin, with visits now and then to far-flung places like Mounty Melleray in Waterford. The Jesuit Order were based in Gardiner Street, not far from St Monica’s, and they too benefited from Mary’s generosity towards anyone with even a splink of religiosity.
Mary O Sullivan died in May, 1955, at the age of 88. Her mortal remains were brought to the Church dedicated to St Francis Xavier in Gardiner Street. She was indeed buried, as per her expressed wishes, in Glasnevin cemetery.
By the time of her burial in 1955, four others - all unrelated - had already been interred in the same plot. This section of the cemetery is unkept and looks more like a battle site than an actual cemetery.
In Glasnevin, well over a million people are interred, many with fine headstones and monuments but nothing indicates the final resting place of the teacher’s wife from Britway.
Mary was not an impoverished person when she died. She left over £500 in her Will - a substantial sum for nearly 70 years ago. Presumably, she expected one of her ‘friends’ might erect some little memorial to mark her burial place.
Recent enquiries have established that there is actually no registered owner of the plot where Mary and the other four are buried, so the grave can still be bought.
Sadly, we have no definite idea where James O Sullivan is buried in Gortroe, but hopefully we can remember both of them.
Just as my uncle and aunt are ‘together again’ in death, as in life the same will happen for Mary and James.
Our plan is to get a headstone erected in Glasnevin with the following inscription.
