Carmavy County Antrim
Also known for many years as "The Place Of The Slaughter"
This protestant graveyard today sits on the site of an ancient Irish Catholic Chapel, back in the early 1600's the parish was attacked by English and Scottish Armies raging through the beautiful Antrim Plateu killing all that stood in front of them. The parishioners sought refuge in the Chapel but the marauding armies cannon-balled the Chapel setting it on fire before tumbling the walls in on the parishioners. The nearby chapels of Dundesert and Ballykennedy suffered a similiar fate, their parishioners chased to Hell, Hannahstown or beyond.
The old Catholic cemetery lay in decay for almost a century and people who had loved ones buried there were warned under sentence of death not to even dare return to visit their graves. The lush lands were taken by planters and those locals who survived this ethnic cleansing were left to roam like beggers in their own land.
Furthermore, under the Penal Laws, no Catholic was permitted to be buried other than in an Anglican cemetery and this was how it stayed until 1828 when Catholics were allowed to have cemeteries of their own again.
Below is a list of some those draconian laws, Penal Laws, imposed on the native Irish by a foreign power.......
• The Catholic Church forbidden to keep church registers.
• The Irish Catholic was forbidden the exercise of his religion.
• He was forbidden to receive education.
• He was forbidden to enter a profession.
• He was forbidden to hold public office.
• He was forbidden to engage in trade or commerce.
• He was forbidden to live in a corporate town or within five miles thereof.
• He was forbidden to own a horse of greater value than five pounds.
• He was forbidden to own land.
• He was forbidden to lease land.
• He was forbidden to accept a mortgage on land in security for a loan.
• He was forbidden to vote.
• He was forbidden to keep any arms for his protection.
• He was forbidden to hold a life annuity.
• He was forbidden to buy land from a Protestant.
• He was forbidden to receive a gift of land from a Protestant.
• He was forbidden to inherit land from a Protestant.
• He was forbidden to inherit anything from a Protestant.
• He was forbidden to rent any land that was worth more than 30 shillings a year.
• He was forbidden to reap from his land any profit exceeding a third of the rent.
• He could not be guardian to a child.
• He could not, when dying, leave his infant children under Catholic guardianship.
• He could not attend Catholic worship.
• He was compelled by law to attend Protestant worship.
• He could not himself educate his child.
• He could not send his child to a Catholic teacher.
• He could not employ a Catholic teacher to come to his child.
• He could not send his child abroad to receive education.
SEE RUSHLIGHT MAGAZINE ARCHIVES