Funeral Crosses

In an age when old traditions are finding it well-nigh impossible to survive the onslaught of an alien culture, it is good to find one ancient custom continuing in Kilmore, the placing of funeral crosses in a white-thorn (sceach) at the roadside. The sight of the large collections of these little wooden crosses, representing thousands of funerals, is a constant fascination for visitors.

Funeral crosses and cemetery

During the long period when Grange cemetery was in use, the funeral crosses were placed at Brandy Cross and Sarshill, near the cemetery. The decaying remnants of these crosses are still to be found at those places. When the present burial ground was opened in 1953, custom was continued. Those attending the funeral pause in respectful silence as the cross is placed with the others. This was formerly done by one of the mourners, but is now done by the undertaker, who automatically brings two crosses for all funerals in Kilmore, the other being for the grave.

It seems that the custom was at one time much more general throughout south Wexford than it is now. In only one instance has it been practised in any other place in Ireland outside the baronies of Forth and Bargy and that was in Cong, Co. Mayo.

The most common explanation derives from an occurrence of historical importance in the year 777 A.D. In that year, King Charlemagne of France was at the head of an invading army fighting in Spain when he received news from home which forced him to withdraw. While retreating over the Pyrenees, his army was ambushed by the Basques in the Pass of Roncevalles and twenty-five thousand were killed. To commemorate the dead and mark the spot, Charlemagne had a great wooden cross erected in the Pass.

Ever afterwards, pilgrims passing that way to the Shrine of St. James of Compostella in Spain, knelt to pray for the dead soldiers at the foot of " Charlemange's Cross " and deposited there a small wooden cross. The "Codex Calixtinus," a manuscript written some 400 years later refers to the custom thus: "A thousand crosses may be seen there and the place itself is looked upon as the first station leading to the shrine of St. James."

The custom became widespread throughout France and the placing of small wooden crosses near wayside shrines became recognised as one of the ways of respecting the dead and of honouring St. James.

It is known that the custom spread from the Pyrenees to northern France where the inhabitants of Flanders and Normandy practised it up to very recently. It is also generally accepted that many of the first Anglo-Norman adventurers who settled in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy in south Co Wexford after 1169 were of Flemish descent. Such common Wexford names as Codd, Wadding, Furlong, Colfer, Bolger, Connick and others are Flemish. Most probably, these settlers brought the custom with them from their native Flanders and Normandy and continued to practise it in their new homeland in South Wexford.

Also, the Cistercians and the Canons Regular of St. Augustine who came into Ireland in the twelfth century, were mainly of French origin, and in the beginning, at least, were closely connected with Norman foundations in England. They were not long in Ireland till they had acquired wide possessions, and secured control over many parishes, even at considerable distances from their own stately abbeys. The Cistercians, for instance, erected a famous abbey at Tintern, which gradually took over several parishes in the neighbourhood, including those of Kilmore, Killturk and Tomhaggard, as well Bannow, in the immediate vicinity of Tintern, in or near which the practice in question is found to exist. The Canons Regular of St. Augustine acquired possession of Cong: and they had also a foundation at Lady's Island, a few miles from Kilmore. Formerly they had charge of the shrine erected by Charlemagne at Roncevalles.

The explanation for the custom of placing these crosses here as each funeral passes is that the Canons Regular of St. Augustine of Cong Abbey came this far with the processional Cross of Cong to meet every funeral. At the time of the expulsion of the order from Cong, when meeting a funeral for the last time, the Lord Abbot, Aeneas MacDonnell, fashioned a rough cross out of branches, stood it on the stone wall and said: " Thus let it be done for all time.

The new Cemetery in Kilmore was opened in 1952. The three acre site was bought the previous year from Con Cadogan for £395. All the work on the cemetery was done on a voluntary basis. A man by the name of Scallan (a solicitor from Wexford) was the first person to be buried there.

The other cemeteries in the parish are found beside the sites of old monasteries or churches.

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Patrons

The 'Patron' (pronounced 'pattern') is a celebration that takes place in many cemeteries in Ireland. This is especially true in the Diocese of Ferns, It is usually celebrated on or near the patron saint of the cemetery - hence the name 'Patron'. During the weeks before the Patron, the graveyard is cleaned up and most of the graves will be covered in flower. The essential part of the celebration will be a ceremony consisting of Prayers for the Dead. Sometimes there will be an outdoor Mass. Often there may be a field day organised to coincide with the Patron day, where the parishioners and others gather to relax and enjoy themselves.

In the parish of Kilmore the Patron days are as follows:

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Yola

When the noted English writer, Arthur Young, made his historic Tour of Ireland in 1776-'79, he found that the people of Forth and Bargy were the most industrious, and its girls and women the most handsome in the country!

Young, who had set out "'in search of adventures in these noted baronies of which I had heard so much," also found that the people had retained a sort of Saxon language peculiar to themselves, without any of them understanding the Irish.

"They speak a broken Saxon language, and not one in a hundred knows anything of Irish," he wrote. "They are evidently a distinct people, and I could not but remark their features and cast of countenance varied very much from the common native Irish. The girls and women are handsomer, having much better features and complexions. Indeed the women among the lower class in general in Ireland are as ugly as the women of fashion are handsome."

The distinctive dialect of the area, known as Yola, survived for centuries and was used in an address in 1836 to the new Lord Lieutenant. The first sentence was:

Wee an as venue chote na cosha an loyale dwelleress na Forthe crave na dieke luckie acte t'uck neicher th' Excellencie an na plaine garbe d'ouve yola talke."

The last eight words mean "In the simple address of our own dialect."

There is no information as to when this old dialect ceased to be spoken as a first language. Charles Vallancey, LL.D., even in 1788, witnessed a decline in the language. A more up-to-date account was given in an address by Edmund Hore, then Editor of the 'Wexford Independent,' on the visit of Earl Mulgrave, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to Wexford on the 15th February, 1836.

He said: "The most remarkable fact in reality in connection with the address is this - in all probability it was the first time regal or vice-regal ears were required to listen to words of such a dialect and it is even still more probable that a like event will never happen again; for if the use of this old tongue dies out as fast for the next twenty years, as it has for the same bygone period, it will be utterly extinct and forgotten before the present century shall have closed."

He also stated: "in order for a person not acquainted with the pronunciation of the dialect to form anything like an idea of it, it is first necessary to speak slowly, and remember that the letter A has invariably the same sound, like a in 'Father." Double ee sounds as e in 'me' and in most words of two syllables the long accent is placed on the last. To follow the English pronunciation completely deprives the dialect of its peculiarities."

Here is a sample of Yola words and their English meaning for a comparison, Yola words first:

Writers on the history of the Baronies of Forth and Bargy found it extremely difficult to determine the dialect's real character. Sir Henry Wallop wrote:"In 1581, the Baronies generally spoke, old English, it was also labelled as being of a Flemish origin, but the Very Reverend C. M. Russell, D.D., President of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, in 1857, sent a sample of words from the dialect to a Belgian scholar to have them analysed. He found in them some Flemish words but nothing which can be regarded as peculiarly Flemish.

"A report on the dialect in 1680 described it as old Saxon English, with a considerable mixture of Irish words." There is substantial evidence that the Normans were very prominent, especially in the Barony of Bargy and might have had some influence on the language. The foreign invaders landed at Bannow Bay in 1169 and the Spring of 1170. This is witnessed to by the number of Norman castles and surnames in the area. This date coincides with the arrival of Strongbow and his followers who landed in Waterford."

Whatever was the precise character of the language of these Baronies, its decline was not entirely the fault of the people. The invasion of Cromwell in 1649 disrupted life in the Baronies when many families were forced to leave. The troubles of 1798 also added to the disruption of real life in the area.

The songs and metrical pieces in this peculiar dialect continues to be of interest to lovers of folklore, the most popular song being "The Wedding of Ballymore." This was, it is said, composed by a poor scholar, as a satire upon the manners of these Baronies

A metrical piece of Yola, recited by Tobias Butler in 1823, is short and can be compared to the English translation:-

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Carol Singers

When the singing of Carols was introduced to the Diocese of Ferns we do not know, but one hundred and fifty years after the so-called Reformation, a strong tradition manifested itself when, in 1684, Dr. Luke Wadding, Bishop of Ferns, published his Pious Garland. The Pious Garland contains among other songs ten carols for the Christmas season; two of these carols are among those sung today in Kilmore.

The bad days were slow in passing, but the carol spirit was kept alive and a fresh impetus was given to the beautiful custom in the southern baronies of Co. Wexford . by Rev. William Devereux, P.P., Drinagh, 1730-1771, who was born in Ring, Tacumshin in 1696. He was the second son of John Devereux, whose family had been transplanted to the Wexford colony, south of Athlone beyond the Shannon, after the Cromwellian campaign.

In 1724 Fr. Devereux entered the Irish College, Salamanca, Spain, to complete his studies for the priesthood. He returned home in 1728, in weak health and lived at his father's house in Ring for two years. Tradition informs us that it was at this period that he wrote several Christmas carols. It is recorded, too, that he had a rich voice and that often at eventide he entertained his friends with the songs of the Sunny Land.

In 1730, Father Devereux was strong enough to take up parochial work and he was appointed to the parish of Drinagh, which was coextensive with the modern parish of Piercestown. He had no chapel for his flock, and a significant entry in the list of Registered Popish Priests of 1731 tells us that he said Mass in the sheltered corner of a field with a 'covering' for the altar at which he officiated.

During his pastorate of Drinagh, Fr. Devereux compiled a Catechism of Christian Doctrine which was adopted and remained in use in the diocese of Ferns for nearly 150 years.
Fr. Devereux died on August 20th, 1771, at the age of 75 years; he was buried in the tomb of his uncle, Rev. Jasper Devereux, in Tacumshin.

Local tradition in the Kilmore district attributed all the surviving carols - thirteen in number - to Fr. Devereux, but this is incorrect, for three of the carols, viz.: the fourth for Christmas Day, the Song for St. Stephen's Day and the Song for New Year's Day were written by Bishop Luke Wadding (1678-1691). They were printed in his Pious Garland, published in Ghent in 1684 and also in the London editions of 1728 and 1731.

We may say then that Fr. Devereux made a collection of Carols some of which he wrote himself, and he incorporated the collection in a manuscript which he called "A New Garland containing Songs for Christmas." He called his collection the " New Garland " to distinguish it from Dr. Luke Wadding's " Pious Garland." The carols were first sung in the little chapel at Killiane, and tradition seems to indicate that the choir consisted of six men who divided themselves into two groups of three to sing the alternate stanzas.

Manuscript copies of the "New Garland'" were multiplied and the songs were introduced to the neighbouring parishes of Ballymore, Mayglass, Lady's Island, Tacumshin, Kilmore and Rathangan. The earliest manuscript of the carols is that mentioned by Mr. Edmond Hore, who states that the first copy of the carols he saw was written by a man who died suddenly in 1762.

The late Very Rev. Thomas O'Byrne, P.P., Piercestown, made transcripts of the Carols while he was curate in Tacumshin in 1908. He had then in his possession two old manuscripts, one from Kilmore dated 1819, the other from Tacumshin dated 1822. The title of the Kilmore copy ran: "A New Garland, containing Songs for Christmas composed by Rev. William Devereux." On the last page was inscribed the folio wing:-" Richard Neill of Ballyseskin his Carol Book, printed in February, anno Christi, 1819."

Today the carols which were once popular all over the Barony of Forth are to be heard only in Kilmore. It is a fine boast for the people of the parish to be able to say that a voluntary choir of six of their men have handed down from generation to generation the traditional words and music of the religious songs of the parish for one hundred and seventy years.

The attachment of the people to these songs is illustrated by the story of Nicholas Devereux of Kilmore who, about 1847, emigrated with his family to the Rio Grande. He took with him into exile a copy of the carols which as a boy he had sung under the direction of Very Rev. Clement Pettit P.P. (died 1827). Nicholas Devereux intended to sing the Wexford Carols, as he said, " in the southern far-off regions of America."

The Devereux family have played a notable part in keeping alive the beautiful custom surviving in Kilmore. Tradition tells us that it was Fr. Peter Devereux who introduced the carols to Kilmore between 1751 and 1794. A hundred years later, in 1871, a Mr. Peter Devereux had succeeded his father as leader of the Kilmore choir singing with him that year were John Devereux, Patrick Harpur, Stephen Whelan, William Sinnott and James Howlin.

Expressing his appreciation of the help he received from Jack Devereux grandson of the above-named Peter, "in collecting the carols, Father Ranson wrote: he has a rare appreciation of good music and his intelligent rendering of the beautiful airs to which these carols are sung made the difficult task of taking down the melodies a pleasure. With the name of John Devereux I must link the name of John Busher, his nephew, and that of Robert Whelan; for these men no amount of trouble was too great in the help they were prepared to give to ensure that the carols would be correctly recorded."

Mr. Geoffrey M. Palmer, Mus. Bac., A.R.C.M., who helped Fr. Ranson in editing the music for the carols wrote: "These beautiful Carols belong to an age that is fast leaving us. The air of the Carol for New Year's Day, in the Dorian mode, is obviously very old and should be carefully observed. The Carols should be unaccompanied and they should be sung in free tempo, rubato style, dwelling on certain notes quite part from the time signature, as the singers feel inspired at the time."

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