“LIKE a field mowed for silage and then left to rot” is how one man described the state of St Joseph’s Cemetery in Castleconnell.
The man, who contacted the Limerick Post this week, asking not to be named, arrived last week to tend to a family grave only to find grass that had previously been left to grow to a height of about two feet had been mowed and left strewn over graves, headstones, ornaments, and plants.
“You would have to put on wellies to get to the graves. It’s everywhere and it’s starting to rot in the rain,” he told this newspaper.
“There’s so much of it that kids are making hay ricks with it.”
The devastated local man said it is “impossible to get the grass out from between graves that have a gravel or stone dressing on them or to even clean it off the headstones”, adding that “the only water tap in the place was cut off because local kids were using it to water their horses”.
“I can only think that someone has cut the grass with a strimmer – which is probably what they had to do because it was left grow for so long – and just left it instead of raking it up. Why do half a job?”
When the Limerick Post went to investigate the situation at the weekend, an elderly man using a walking cane asked if this reporter could help him get to his wife’s grave across the swathes of cut grass.
He said that while the main tarmac path running between the two halves of the plot is easy to navigate, the space between the graves is minimal and there are no proper paths.
“It’s very tricky to walk on anytime and you have to walk over other graves to get to where my wife is buried. I can’t manage with the way it is now – I can’t even see the ground to know where the dips and holes are.”
In response to a query from the Limerick Post, a spokesman for the local authority said that “in many of the local cemeteries managed by Limerick City and County Council, maintenance and general upkeep is carried out by local maintenance committees, which are grant-supported”.
“On occasion, a committee may wish to stand down, requiring the identification of another method of maintenance,” the Council spokesman explained.
“In the case of St Joseph’s Cemetery, Castleconnell, Limerick City and County Council is in the process of establishing a new local maintenance committee to carry on the excellent work of its predecessor. This transition period has necessitated the identification of an alternative and temporary maintenance arrangement, which has now commenced after a brief hiatus.”
The Council spokesman said that “grass is not collected after cutting in cemeteries in general. However, on this occasion, the quantity of cuttings remaining may have been unusually large.”
Limerick City and County Council is investigating whether there are issues with the water supply at the cemetery.
