Author Topic: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point  (Read 3815 times)

Offline Rice mix

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 9
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
I am going to Ireland in June and would love to find the cemetery mentioned in this family letter. Any help, any leads, is appreciated. Thanks to all in advance and sorry the excerpt is long--didn't know what info would help the most!

From a letter written in 1957 by Anne Ellen Coxen, sister of Thomas Frederick Rice (my great-grandfather)

“I will try to describe the old burial ground, it is called Ford (may be a word similar?), and it is top of a small mountain. All the neighbors go to a funeral, certain ones are selected to go up and open a particular grave. They have to be in line, by descent or relatives. There are no paths on this rugged cemetery, one just steps on up and down over rises or boulders. But there are some flat places and these are spacious and five families of Rices have buried there.

Our grave is a large one and five families bury in our grave. I knew them all, half are cousins and distant cousins all around Bellurgan Point. But what amazed me on my first visit there, it was Uncle Peter’s funeral, it was so high up, no carts could come to the last few hundred feet. We had to leave the carts and horses and walk up. And when we reach the top, there are no real paths, we follow the footsteps of all who have gone before us.

And each family knows where their own plot is. On our grave there is old slate stone. The writing on it is nearly worn away, next to us  and over there is a large family and  one of their boys is Owen Rice, oldest son and a school master. I'm told we came from the same family tree, but so far back that it was lost. They didn't bury in our grave, but quite near, on the next level piece of ground. He told me the first name on the old slate slab was Owen Rice of Bellurgan a lot more detail.

I can't write now, but to be born in a large city like Liverpool, it was quite impressive. But it is a quick changing world, will scatter all these memories. They have built a new cemetery near Dundalk and the prelates advertising the young generation to bury there. It is progress I suppose but the old folk want the old burial ground.”

Offline heywood

  • RootsChat Honorary
  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 40,587
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #1 on: Saturday 08 April 17 16:54 BST (UK) »
Hello and welcome.

I just did a search and think it might be Faughart - there is a graveyard and shrine there for St Brigid.
There is quite a lot of information and photos if you search - here is one page

http://irelandsholywells.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/saint-brigids-shrine-and-well-faughart.html

I hope this is it.  :)

Heywood
Census Information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline hallmark

  • ~
  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • ****
  • Posts: 17,525
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #2 on: Saturday 08 April 17 17:11 BST (UK) »
Google Maps   http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jvv/   if it is Faughart
Give a man a record and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to research, and you feed him for a lifetime.

Offline dathai

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,078
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile


Offline Rice mix

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 9
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #4 on: Saturday 08 April 17 18:56 BST (UK) »
Thank you for the information on Faughart cemetery. The Owen Rice listed at space #84 for Faughart does not say he was the oldest son, nor a school master, so I am not sure. Also, Faughart does not provide any clear way to tell if my family's area is NEAR Owen. Their site states that "the numbering commences at the east end of graveyard where most of the older stones are to be found"

Faughart does have a William "Patrick" Rice 1845, died 16 January 1907, but I found my 3rd great uncle Patrick Rice in the Irish Census of 1911 living with his wife, Margaret and niece, Mary Ward so I do not think that grave is a match.

So close, yet not definitive... ???

Offline dathai

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,078
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile

Offline dathai

  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 9,078
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #6 on: Saturday 08 April 17 19:30 BST (UK) »
images not available at the moment but includes Michael above Calendar of Wills
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01jvw/

Offline heywood

  • RootsChat Honorary
  • RootsChat Marquessate
  • *******
  • Posts: 40,587
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #7 on: Saturday 08 April 17 19:33 BST (UK) »
Hello Rice Mix,

Re your doubts - do you mean that you doubt the cemetery or that the grave of Owen is not the schoolmaster's?

Heywood
Census Information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Offline Rice mix

  • RootsChat Extra
  • **
  • Posts: 9
  • Census information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk
    • View Profile
Re: Help locating Rice burial ground called ?Ford? from around Bellurgan Point
« Reply #8 on: Saturday 08 April 17 19:43 BST (UK) »
Hello Rice Mix,

Re your doubts - do you mean that you doubt the cemetery or that the grave of Owen is not the schoolmaster's?

Heywood

Heywood: I doubt that the grave of Owen is not the school master referred to in my family's letter.