Tea Lane Graveyard

Cemetery in Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland

Tea Lane Graveyard

Conolly chapel

Details
Established| 7th century AD
Location|

Church Road, Celbridge, County Kildare

Country| Ireland
Coordinates| 53°20′20″N 6°32′48″W﻿ / ﻿53.338772°N 6.546788°W﻿ / 53.338772; -6.546788
Type| Christian
Style| Rural cemetery
Owned by| Glasnevin Trust
Size| 3,140 m2 (0.775 acre)
No. of graves| 19,400
Website| tealanegraveyard.com
Find a Grave| Tea Lane Graveyard

Tea Lane Graveyard (Irish: Reilig Lána an Tae) is a Christian cemetery located in Celbridge, Ireland.[1][2][3][4]

## History

[edit]

The site is located 500 m northwest of the River Liffey and is the reputed burial site of Saint Mochua of Timahoe (died 657). Mochua built a wooden church on the site and was the first abbot of Clondalkin. It stood on the Slighe Mhor, an ancient roadway which ran from Dublin to Galway.[5]

The Normans handed over control of St Mochua's church to the Abbey Church of Saint Thomas the Martyr, Dublin in 1215; the abbey supplied Celbridge with its priests. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the abbey was suppressed and came into the possession of the Anglican Church of Ireland.[6]

The present church building was built c. 1860, incorporating material from the medieval church (c. 1600).[7]

The placename dates to the 19th century, when many English workers were brought over to work at Celbridge mill; the locals noted the large amounts of tea they drank, and the tealeaves that they threw into the roadway,[8] and Church Lane was nicknamed "Tea Lane."[9]

## Gallery

[edit]

* Mortuary chapel

* Ruined medieval church, with tracery fragment visible in the windowframe

## Notable burials

[edit]

Memorial plaque to Vol. Michael Heffernan

* Katherine Conolly (1662–1752), wife of William Conolly
* Lady Louisa Conolly (1743–1821), one of the famous Lennox Sisters
* William Conolly (1662–1729), Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and builder of Castletown House
* Many of the Dongan family[10]
* Henry Grattan (junior) (1789–1859), Whig Member of Parliament
* Vol. Michael Heffernan (1889–1954); member of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army and fought in the 1916 Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War (on the anti-Treaty side)[11][12]
* Saint Mochua of Timahoe (d. 657)[13]
* Air Mechanic, Second Class C.J. Sheridan, Royal Air Force (1900–1921); the only World War soldier in Tea Lane[14]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Tea Lane Graveyard Conservation Project". www.facebook.com.
2. ^ "History morning at Celbridge's Tea Lane graveyard".
3. ^ McCarthy, Patricia (12 July 2017). Life in the Country House in Georgian Ireland. Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. ISBN 9780300218862 - via Google Books.
4. ^ D'Arcy, Fergus A. (1 January 2007). Remembering the War Dead: British Commonwealth and International War Graves in Ireland Since 1914. Stationery Office. ISBN 9780755775897 - via Google Books.
5. ^ "New conservation project for Tea Lane graveyard in Celbridge – Kildare Local History . ie". kildarelocalhistory.ie.
6. ^ Doohan, Tony (1984). A History of Celbridge. Genprint Ltd, Dublin. pp. 8, 71–72.71-72&rft.pub=Genprint+Ltd,+Dublin&rft.date=1984&rft.aulast=Doohan&rft.aufirst=Tony&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Tea+Lane+Graveyard" class="Z3988">
7. ^ "Tea Lane Graveyard, Church Road, Celbridge, County Kildare". www.buildingsofireland.ie.
8. ^ O'Dowd, Desmond J. (1 October 1997). Changing times: the story of religion in 19th century Celbridge. Irish Academic Press. ISBN 9780716526353 - via Google Books.
9. ^ "Celbridge History by Charles Graham (1896)". 5 February 2013.
10. ^ Higgins, Aidan (12 July 1995). Donkey's years: memories of a life as story told. Secker & Warburg. ISBN 9780436203046 - via Internet Archive. "tea lane."
11. ^ "Tea Lane Graveyard Conservation Project". www.facebook.com.
12. ^ "Sinn Fein lay wreath at Heffernan memorial in Kildare".
13. ^ "Projects | National Heritage Week 14-22 August 2021".
14. ^ "Casualty Details | CWGC".

*[No.]: Number