School: Dean Kelly Memorial (roll number 16639)
- Location:
- Athlone, Co. Westmeath
- Teacher: D. Cahalene
Archival Reference
The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0748, Page 207
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- There is an old ruin adjacent to the Woollen Factory which was formally an old Franciscan Abbey. There is an old graveyard situated beside the old Abbey. At the time when the Abbey was built it was customary with the people of that period to bury their dead in the Churchyards. So it is not surprising to learn that the Churchyard of the Abbey was converted into a graveyard. When the disease called the cholera swept over Ireland in the year 1848, all the people in Athlone who died from the disease were buried in that graveyard. The people died so quickly that they were thrown into the graves in cartfuls. Two men went round the town with a cart shouting "bring out your dead" every morning. Great fires lighted in the market-place to purify the air. Hundreds of people died in Athlone, both good and bad. John Brennan the local poet put it thus "The pure and the vile all cut down in the mowing".
The graveyard is filled up for years. But it was extended and is still in use. The one family that is being buried there still is the family of Lysters.
