By Philip Donnelly, Ottawa, Canada

The old cemetery of Moybolgue, about three miles south from the town of Bailieborough, on the border between Meath and Cavan, is of great historic interest. It is reputed to be the burial place of more of the ancient Irish kings than anywhere else in Ireland[2]. A history of the Roman Catholic part of the parish around the village of Kilmainhamwood has already been recorded[3]. But the heritage and legends of the civil parish known as Moybolgue and the stories of the people who lived there are yet to be told.

 Moybolgue old cemetery

 A history of Moybolgue should preserve some valuable memories of the ordinary people who, for thousands of years, cultivated the soil, harvested the turf, and tended the cattle, on the hills and in the valleys of this region. The traces of ringforts and crannogs (dwellings in lakes, supported on wooden posts) which dot the landscape, but which may be recognizable only to trained archaeologists, give some clues about the people who lived here in the Early Christian periods and into the Middle Ages[4]. But too much time and too many generations have slipped by in the intervening centuries, and even the most tenuous links to that distant past may have vanished for ever. The passing of just 150 years has gone a very long way towards wiping out all living recollections of the 386 families who populated the surrounding townlands and were the tenants or owners of land in the civil parish of Moybolgue in 1854[5].