Maddockstown Graveyard is situated near the eastern bank of the River Nore, the cemetery here is also known as Blackrath Cemetery and Maddoxtown. There are the very scant remains of a medieval church and it is believed a church was situated here since the time of the Norman Invasion. The Down Survey of the 1650s indicates that the church may have already been in ruin and simply states ‘on Maddockstowne..the walls of a Church’. According to William Carrigan in the History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory (1905) the Church was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and was the main church of Blackrath, the area later known as Maddockstown. The majority of the visible burials date to the 18th and 19th centuries. One of which I found quite poignant, “God be merciful to the souls of Mary Byrn alias Moran with six of her children dead, May ye 7th 1742 aged 29. Erected by her son”. To have six children dead at the tender age of 29 before her own demise is a sorrowful reflection of the realities of the time.
GPS: 52.63203, -7.19522