Ballyclog Gravestone Inscriptions by FRANK MAYES l?$lbt To honour the dead with a memorial stone or tomb has been part of European culture si nee the Stone Age. and although the mention of a churchyard may conjure up images of Victorian vicars and romantic...
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Ballyclog Gravestone Inscriptions by FRANK MAYES l?$lbt To honour the dead with a memorial stone or tomb has been part of European culture si nee the Stone Age. and although the mention of a churchyard may conjure up images of Victorian vicars and romantic poets, recording the names of the dead above their burial places has occurred for thousands of years before that period, and of course, has continued since. In Ireland, the recording of names of the dead probably started on Ogham tombstones about two thousand years ago. but is more widespread now than it has ever been. This, no doubt, is due to the increased ability to afford stone monuments and the continuance of burial rather than cremation as the preferred type of funeral. The ravages of time, not to mention that of human activity, will eventually obliterate even the most substantial of monuments, and even where inscriptions survive, one has to actually decipher what is written on the stones, a feat which is often inconvenient and
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