St. Nahi's Church
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The 18th century church of St Nahi is located in Dundrum, Dublin, Ireland.
[edit] History
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 (historically encompassing the whole area around Dundrum). It is built on the site of an 8th century monastery founded by St. Nahi.
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 gave 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, after a period 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. A plaque erected after the refurbishment reads:
| “ | The entrance gate to this Churchyard was erected by the parishoners of Taney Parish to the memory of William Monk Gibbons, Canon of Christ Church Cathedral by whose impression and effort the restoration of this church was accomplished. He repaired the alter of the Lord. | ” |
[edit] Items of interest
The church contains some interesting artefacts including the baptismal font of the Duke of Wellington who was baptised in 1769, donated to Taney Parish in 1914 by the closing St. Kevin’s Church, and altar tapestries depicting scenes from the Bible. The tapestries illustrating the Last Supper were made by the two Yeats sisters Lily and Lolly Yeats, both of whom are interred 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 Dúchas, the slabs were relocated inside the church.
An insight into life expectancy for the area can be gleaned from the "Index to the Register of Burials" for the parish between January 1897 and April 1917 show 1,836 people buried during this period, of which 551 were children under 6 years of age.
[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 of 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), makes this unlikely. 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 said 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 Irish Republican Army 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 fatalities of the 1798 uprising are buried.
The graveyard also contains many Royal Irish Constabulary Officers, World War II 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 predates 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.
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