Concern as graveyards in Cork county ‘full to capacity’ 

Fianna Fáil councillor Ian Doyle said that the graveyard in Tullylease “is now full to capacity” and that he had been contacted by locals who are extremely worried local parishioners will have to be buried else-where.

Municipal district officer Claire Barr said the council is looking at similar situations in a number of graveyards in the same region.

She said local authority officials are currently carrying out a review of the graveyard extensions requests across the region.

“We have a number of large graveyard extension requests including Tullylease which would require very substantial funding in the coming years for land purchase and construction.

“The level of funding required for each site and order of priority in which they can be funded are now being examined,” Ms Barr said.

Fine Gael councillor John Paul O’Shea said the projects need to be advanced quickly and when he asked if the council had entered into talks yet with landowners, he was told by engineers that to date they were not aware of this occurring.

Engineers said they hope to provide councillors with an update on the potential projects at their meeting next month, but emphasised they would have to secure funding before they could commit to the cemetery extensions.

Mr Doyle got a more positive commitment when he asked for a water connection to be provided at Ballyhea Graveyard.

He said it is a council-owned cemetery and it should not be too difficult to provide a connection as there’s a water pipe running very close to it into the church next door.

Mr Barr promised him she would get that looked after.

Meanwhile, Social Democrats councillor Liam Quaide told a meeting of the East Cork Municipal District Council he is very concerned about a long-promised extension to Lisgoold cemetery.

He said he had sought this extension repeatedly for a number of years and the lack of progress on it “is a source of ongoing concern for the local community”.

Officials said that, like the North Cork region, they are tying to progress “bundles” of cemetery extensions and would revert to Mr Quaide in due course on their progress.