RESEARCHERS have been digging deep to make dead certain that the names of 70,000 people buried in one of the country’s largest cemeteries are preserved for posterity.
An online, searchable database of the names of those buries in Mount St. Lawrence Cemetery is nearing completion and will be officially launched next month, it has been announced.
Staff from Limerick City Archives in conjunction with the History Department of Mary Immaculate College of Education, have spent the past two years manually transcribing thousands of handwritten records of those buried between 1855 and 2008. The records include the name, age, address and in many cases, the cause of death of those buried in the 164-year-old cemetery.
Mount St Lawrence graveyard, located in the South Liberties, has been the primary place of burial in Limerick City for all strata of society since its opening in 1849. Its development began as burial ground capacity elsewhere in the city was placed under pressure following cholera epidemics in the 1830’s and the Great Famine in the 1840’s.
An extension to was opened in 1960 and the management of the cemetery was transferred from the Church to the Limerick City Council in 1979.
Mayor Kathleen Leddin described the newly developed online records as an important step in Limerick City’s preparations to become Ireland’s first National City of Culture in 2014.
“There are few people in Limerick City and surrounding parts, including southeast Clare and County Limerick, who do not know somebody or do not have a relative who is buried at Mount St. Lawrence Cemetery. This online database will make it much easier for members of the public, both at home and abroad, to locate information relating to their deceased relatives. I wish to congratulate Limerick City Archives and Mary Immaculate College for their hard work in delivering this project”, she said.
via Limerick burial records are a dead cert (303 with quote box) | Limerick Post Newswrite.
