Aughadown Graveyard in West Cork – Skibbereen Heritage Centre

Aughadown graveyard overlooks the river Ilen in a very peaceful and picturesque location. It contains the ruin of St Matthew’s Church, built in 1812. The western part of the graveyard was once the site of a late medieval church which was used up to the early 1800s. However, no trace of this building remains today.

click here to watch a video tour of Aughadown old graveyard.

The graveyard at Aughadown contains burials from the Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland and Methodist communities, with the earliest inscriptions from the early 1700s. Large stone slabs cover many of the graves, brought to the graveyard from the home-places of the deceased, some of them shipped in from offshore islands. There are also several crypts in Aughadown which have underground vaults to host the remains of some of the most prominent families in the area.

This tomb at Aughadown has an inscription dating back to 1703

Among those buried at Aughadown is Patrick McCarthy of the 5th Cork Brigade of the IRA. He took part in the Kilmichael Ambush in 1920 and was shot during the Siege of Skibbereen in 1922, aged 22. It was said that a lit cigarette revealed his location to his assassin. A plaque now marks the spot where he was killed on the Windmill Rock in Skibbereen.

Very close to the Patrick McCarthy grave is the tomb is of the Bechers of Aughdown, once major landlords in the area. Buried in this plot is Colonel Thomas Becher who died in 1708 and served as aide-de-camp to King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

The grave of revolutionary Patrick McCarthy who fought in the Kilmichael Ambush is located very close to that of Colonel Thomas Becher who served as aide-de-camp to King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Aughadown is also the final resting place of Dr Stephen Sweetnam. As a dispensary doctor during the Great Famine, Dr Sweetnam was very active in Famine relief. A Famine landlord, Lionel Fleming of New Court, is also buried at Aughadown.

As dispensary doctor in Schull during the Great Famine, Dr Sweetnam saw all the horrors of the Famine. He was very active in Famine relief and regularly wrote to the media describing the appalling conditions on the Mizen peninsula at that time.

Local folklore says that this headstone was broken to remove treasure hidden in its metal frame but we can’t say if this is true or not!

It is said that unbaptised babies were buried to the south of the graveyard walls, outside the walls and overlooking the River Ilen. Again, we have no way of verifying this but this was a custom at one time so this report is recorded and acknowledged on the new sign. These un-named little babies certainly deserve to be recorded too.

The sign at Aughadown lists all those known to be buried in this medieval graveyard. In the photo (l-r): Terri Kearney, Skibbereen Heritage Centre, project manager; William Casey, volunteer at Skibbereen Heritage Centre, who carried out the original graveyard survey at Aughadown; Raymond Duggan of Kilkilleen who submitted a huge amount of information to the project on uninscribed burials, and Barry McMahon, co-ordinator of the graveyard signs project.