Thursday 23 September 2010

Irish Graveyard Survey moves on

An ambitious project to survey and index every grave in Ireland takes another important step forward next week.


Irish Graveyard Surveyors (IGS Ltd), the company behind the project, will begin another survey of graves, this time at cemeteries around Buncrana, in Inishowen, co Donegal.

Their 12-strong team surveys every plot in the cemeteries, whether or not they have a headstone or other marker. As each graveyard survey is completed, a map and index (noting name and address of the deceased, month and year of death, age at death and plot number) is drawn up and displayed in local churches and chapels. Any corrections are noted before a stainless steel sign is erected in the grounds showing the map and index.

IGS has already completed surveys in other west coast parishes and plans to upload their indexes to a website in due course. I'll be keeping an eye on this project as it develops and will post when the website goes live.