St. Nahi's Church
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The 18th century church of St Nahi is located in Dundrum, Dublin.
[edit] History
The original church dates back to about 700AD, the current church is still in use by the local Church of Ireland Community and is one of two churches in the Parish of Taney.
St. Nahi was reputedly from Sligo, moving south via Meath until he settled and founded a monastery in what was then densely wooded countryside. His monastery may have given its name to the Parish of Taney (Teach nDaithi or Nahi).
St. Nahi's stands on the grounds of the original monastery, having been refurbished several times, most recently in 1910, when it was in use as the local boy’s national school. Following storm damage to the roof, a major refurbishment was carried out by the then Rector of the Parish, Canon William Monk Gibbon (father of the poet of the same name), who is buried in the grounds of the church.
[edit] Items of interest
The church contains some interesting artefacts including the baptismal font of the Duke of Wellington, donated to Taney Parish in 1914 by St. Kevin’s Church and altar tapestries depicting scenes from the Bible. The tapestries were made by the two Yeates sisters Lily and Lolly Yeats, both of whom are interned in the graveyard.
Two Rathdown Slabs[1] are displayed inside the church. These ornate burial slabs date back 1,000 years to the Viking-Christian era. Such slabs have only been found in the barony of Rathdown (the area roughly covering Churchtown to Bray). Only about 30 of these slabs have been discovered to date, these two were recently found in the graveyard. Aided by Duchas, the slabs were relocated inside the church.
[edit] Graveyard
Cremated remains are interred to the left of the entrance gates. This area was originally a mass famine grave and later used for patients in the Dundrum Central Mental Hospital. Old records refer to this area as the Asylum Plot.
Queen Victoria's personal physician, Sir William Gull, who is probably buried in the Asylum Plot, became one of the main suspects in the Jack the Ripper cases. The fact that he was an elderly man in his seventies and was, at this stage, a patient in Dundrum Central Mental Hospital (where he later died) after a nervous breakdown, precludes him from suspicion. However, his disappearance from London life around the time of the murders raised suspicions in the Ripper cases.
A back gate to the Church was only recently uncovered under much overgrowth. Although it had been used by teachers as a shortcut between the Church (when it was being used as a boys national school) and the nearby girls national school, its original function is alleged to have been as an entrance for Roman Catholics when attending funerals at a time when they were barred from entering the main gates of a Protestant Church.
Many Irish Republican graves lie within the graveyard, including the gravestones of Lorcain McSuibhne, a member of the IRA killed in 1922 in Kildare (his funeral occurred at St Nahi's and there exists photographic evidence of Eamon DeValera in attendance) and of James Burke, who was killed in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday. There is also a 1798 plot where some casualties of the 1798 uprising are buried.
The graveyard also contains many RIC Officers, World War Two soldiers and Freemasons.
Currently, over 3,600 burials have been recorded, with the earliest visible gravestone dating back to 1734. The Parish of Taney: a History of Dundrum, Near Dublin, and its Neighbourhood[2] published in 1895, claims that there are “tens of thousands” of burials within the graveyard, a credible figure considering its age.
As the Churchyard precedes the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 it is open for burial to all those who live within the boundaries of the Parish of Taney, whatever their denomination.
