By Dan Walsh
Remnants of a fallen stonewall boundary featured in the website WexfordLocal.com in July 2021 has been replaced by a newly built pre-stressed concrete wall that adds privacy and security to the ancient St. Senan’s Hospital graveyard at Killagoley, on the outskirts of Enniscorthy.
Members of the local community drew attention to the poor state of the graveyard to WexfordLocal.com and requested public awareness as they feared nothing may be done to preserve and respect the burial grounds and it would become forgotten and overgrown.
Those same proud community people have welcomed the work and complemented the replacement of the boundary wall and it is now hoped that the graveyard will be protected and, perhaps, the annual Patron will soon be restored on the site.
Nobody knows the numbers buried there and nobody knows their names! Some small white crosses were placed by a boundary wall, and a larger cross stood in the middle. But there are no names and nothing to mark individual graves.
The cemetery at St Senan’s was in use until the 1940s and became operational shortly after the asylum was opened in 1868. It is unknown how many people were buried there.
Those laid to their eternal rest from St Senan’s Psychiatric Hospital were remembered by staff and patients, and for about 30 years or so a Patron had been held at the cemetery each summer.
St. Senan’s Hospital closed in 2013, some medical services continued there until 2015, and late in 2017 site and land were bought for development by a consortium of local business interests.
The burial grounds is located just outside the walls of the St. Senan’s lands beside a public road between Gimont Avenue and Salville and public access is open.
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