The heights of some headstones being erected in a Tipperary cemetery have been described as “monstrosities”, with claims that they are being illegally installed at nighttime to avoid detection.
That was the claim made by Cashel councillor Liam Browne at the May meeting of the Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel Municipal District, who said that Tipperary County Council were turning a blind eye to the enforcement of by-laws in Cormac’s Cemetery in Cashel which governs the height that headstones can be.
Responding to Cllr Browne’s calls, Cllr Roger Kennedy said that “it’s not fair on the ordinary people, who have a gravestone under four foot six, and the one beside it has an eight foot high monstrosity.”
Cllr Browne said that council by-laws are being ignored not just by people putting in headstones, but by the council as well who should be policing and enforcing the bylaws.
"We have Tipperary County Council burial by-laws and to be quite frank, what I said at the meeting was that they’re being ignored.
"They’re not just being ignored by the people putting up the headstones, which are out of size and scale for what they should be, but they’re also being ignored by the council who should be policing the headstones that go in, and once they go in, there seems to be an acceptance by the council that there’s nothing they can do about it,” Cllr Browne said.
Large headstones are being erected at nighttime, Cllr Browne said, with Tipperary County Council officials encountering a contractor who was putting in an “illegally sized” headstone under the cover of darkness.
"The council did come across a contractor putting in an illegally sized headstone a couple of months ago, and they stopped the contractor from putting it in, they told them they were not an authorised contractor, and the contractor left, but they came back two days later at two or three o’clock in the morning and finished off the headstone,” Cllr Browne explained.
"They then basically rang the council and said look, it’s up now and ye can do what ye like with it, ye can take it down if ye like but as far as he was concerned, he had fulfilled what he was supposed to do, which was put it up,” the Cashel-based councillor added.
Calling on the council to enforce the bylaws that are in place, Cllr Browne said that they should go after the contractors who are installing these headstones.
"The council know that this is happening and whether they should be going after the contractor, I think they should because the contractor’s obviously broken the law, but they don’t, and then the families who are putting the headstones up, as sensitive a subject as it is, if you don’t address it, I do believe it’s going to get worse,” Mr Browne added.
The Tipperary County Council burial ground bylaws state that headstones should be no taller than 4’ 11”, or 7’ in the case of a Celtic Cross, but headstones that far exceed these rules have been installed in Cormac’s Cemetery.
At the May meeting of the Tipperary-Cahir-Cashel MD, Cathaoirleach of the district Cllr John Crosse said that the council were not ignoring the issue and that a meeting and a site visit would be held to discuss the issue.
“I have to disagree [with Cllr Crosse] on that, we are ignoring it, we have been ignoring it, and we’ve been ignoring it in more than Cashel, we’ve been ignoring it in graveyards across the county because Cashel is not the only place that have complained,” Cllr Browne said.
Action needs to be taken on these “illegal” headstones according to the Cashel councillor, saying that people should be made aware that if they erect a headstone that doesn’t comply with the burial ground bylaws, it can be taken down.
"As much as I hate to think that it would have to be done, there may be a case, it has been done in the past, there is precedent of taking headstones back down again, you cannot just say look, if a headstone’s gone up and it’s in breach of a law, that it stays up, there’s other cases of breaches of planning legislation around the county, you could look at modular homes, you could talk about extensions, but they would be very quick to move on the people involved, and use the law to have them taken back down again,” Cllr Browne said.
"I’ve had conversations with members of the travelling community, and that suggestion has been made to them and some of them are quite happy with the suggestion that yes, they can still put up what they would consider ‘fancy’ memorials as they put it, but they would still have to remain within the bylaws,” the independent councillor added.
"I believe that in too many cases, too many people talk for the traveller community, and not to the traveller community … sometimes if you sit down and have a chat with the local travelling community in the towns who are long-standing members of the town, due to the sensitivity of this, I don’t think we chat enough to the travelling community themselves and see what can be accepted,” the Cashel councillor concluded.