Follow the trail to discover the hidden history of this fascinating site.
In 1857 attempts to provide a new burial ground failed due to the high costs. By 1866 the rector of St Mary’s Clonmel, John Tempest Brady highlighted that the conditions of St Stephen’s and St Nicholas’s cemeteries was poor and they both should be closed. There was an unusually high rate of dysentery and diarrhoea propertied around residents living close to St Stephen’s. St Patrick’s cemetery Clonmel was opened 1886.
At this point St Stephen’s cemetery closed, at the time it covered an area of 4,305 square yards, the surface was irregular and uneven. It was greatly overcrowded and its soil was so shallow that some coffins were buried close to the surface. It was thought likely that the nearby public well was probably contaminated as a result. The workhouse in Clonmel which is located close by was operational at this time.
