​These photographs were taken at various times from more or less the same location between July 2018 and March 2020.  The field in the foreground is at the very edge of Co. Carlow.  It is in Mountkelly townland.  Beyond the trees is Killalish (pronounced ‘Killalesh’) Lower townland in Co. Wicklow.
 
The twin mountains in the background are Keadeen (on the left) and Carrig (on the right). Over the shoulder of Carrig on a clear day you can glimpse the summit of Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in Wicklow, and in Leinster.  On the side of Keadeen towards where it merges with Carrig, are two discoloured patches that resemble two reclining figures. Local folklore says that they are the shapes of Finn McCool, of ancient legend, and his wife.  I wrote about these figures in a previous post.
 
Here are the images:

​(1) July 2018

​​(2) January 2019

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​(3) April 2019

​(4) Mid-August 2019

​(5) Late August 2019
The other evening in Mountkelly Lane. It was beautiful weather and Lugnaquilla managed to peep over the shoulder of Carrig. I've taken the same view at different times for over the past year. The yellow rapeseed dominated at the beginning of the summer. A few weeks ago it was all brown and tumbled down. Now just the stubble is left. I wonder what crop the field will get next year.

​(6) October 2019
Yesterday (12 Oct) Mr & Mrs Finn McCool were enjoying a bit of autumnal sunshine on the side of Keadeen mountain. You can just see the figures over the top of the lowest trees. Of course, they were much clearer and closer to the naked eye. Lug is just in the picture also, on the right.

​(7) March 2020
Today (21 Mar) Finn & Mrs McCool were a little cold on the side of Keadeen. Not a day for sunbathing! I'm afraid you can't really expect them to understand the importance of social distancing - they never move from that spot. Those clouds looked weirder in reality, as if a UFO was about to appear out of them. Anything could happen now that we're living in a futuristic disaster movie that's changing everything around us.

​I’ve been haunting St. Mary’s churchyard in Rathvilly on and off for the past few weeks.  It’s surrounded almost entirely by houses, with the road to Tullow completing the circle, so it’s hard not to be seen.  I’m sure people were wondering about the strange man returning every few days on his bicycle to crouch among the gravestones and scribble on pieces of paper.  But on all my visits I only spoke to two people.  One was a genial peer who came in his capacity as a parishioner to repair a capstone on a low wall.  We discussed the strangeness of a ‘warped’ flat gravestone that has been sagging for nearly two centuries.  The other was the friendly and helpful caretaker who also found the memorials interesting.
 
As you may have guessed, my haunting of the churchyard was for the purpose of transcribing the gravestone inscriptions.  It was the conclusion of a small project I started exactly twenty years ago!  In the summer of 1999, when I lived in Dublin, I was house-sitting for friends in my native Baltinglass.  The weather was good and I felt like cycling.  I decided to start transcribing the stones in Rathvilly Church of Ireland graveyard.  I also toyed with following up with the Catholic graveyard in the heart of the village till I took a good look at its size and thought the better of it.
 
My work in 1999 progressed well.  I put my notes away, thinking they should be typed up and published at some time.  I mislaid them and periodically came across them, only to forget where they were, over and over.  At one stage I suggested to the editors of the West Wicklow Historical Society Journal that I would submit the memorial transcriptions as an article.  This year one of them reminded me of this.  As I thought they would be the shortest route to a completed article and as I had recently rediscovered them, I promised the article.  Incidentally, before you ask, Rathvilly is indeed in Co. Carlow, but it’s just over the border and the WWHS covers West Wicklow and environs.  Besides, several Baltinglass parishioners are buried in Rathvilly.
 
It was only when I started typing up my notes that I realised that I hadn’t covered all the graves I had intended to.  In any case, I knew there were many question marks that would have to be addressed.  So back I cycled to the churchyard in the summer of 2019 and plodded about trying to make sense of my twenty-year-old findings.  Many of the inscriptions were tricky and some downright impossible, so the project dragged on.  I was back and forth to Rathvilly on relatively sunny days, eating my snacks on the Green like a cycling tourist, and latterly in the comfort of the newly opened Wild Flower Café.  I have to admit that it was no real hardship.  Transcribing gravestone inscriptions is fun for me and if I had the time I’d do it more often.  But my clients’ reports are more pressing.
 
I remember once when I was in my early teens being in the cemetery in Baltinglass with my Dad.  He walked on a bit but I was among the very old graves, standing on a flat stone, crouched down, intent on deciphering the wording.  There was a yew tree to my left and I became aware of some activity near it.  I rotated my downturned face to the left and there were two women crouching low to get a good look under the tree at what I might be doing.  Once spotted, they straightened up quickly and went on their way.  They were women well known for patrolling the town in search of trivial intelligence.  I’m sure I gave an edge to their findings on that day.  They certainly made me laugh!
 
So, today I celebrate the submission of my article on the Rathvilly church and churchyard memorials to the editors of the WWHSJ.  The estimated publication date is in October.  I must say thank you to Ger Clarke, caretaker of St. Mary’s, and Hazel Burgess, churchwarden, for their assistance in completing the project.  And I hope that it gives more longevity to the memory of those buried at St. Mary’s.