Rest in Peace A woman who helped to preserve Callan’s cultural heritage and vindicate the rights of senior citizens has passed to her eternal reward.
Alice Lennon (née Lakes) was born and raised in Graignamanagh, where she worked in her teenage years before moving to Callan. She and her husband Jim acquired a farm at Mackstown.
Though committed to farming, Alice soon found herself drawn to social activism and developed a keen interest in all aspects of local heritage and antiquities.
She was a longtime member of Callan Heritage Society and was for years the driving behind Callan Enterprise Group, which sought to enhance local sites deemed to be of cultural, historic, or religious importance. In particular it was determined to clean up and restore ancient or neglected cemeteries in the district.
The advent of Community Employment Schemes in Ireland in the 1980s proved a godsend to Callan Enterprise Group, because, in addition to providing urgently needed personnel to undertake restoration work, the schemes boosted employment in the area and raised local morale.
Alice directed work at the cemeteries in Tullamaine and Coolagh. Within weeks of the FAS team commencing operations a huge improvement was evident in the ancient places of burial. Visitors converged on Tullamaine and Coolagh to examine headstones that for years had been obscured by moss and erosion.
Alice also ensured that details of inscriptions were recorded for the benefit of enquiring relatives of the deceased.
Alice then turned her attention to St Mary’s in Green Street, Callan, a medieval church and documented National Monument. Here again, the CE workers under her direction did Callan proud, transforming the grounds of the time-honoured place of worship. An achievement for which Alice will never be forgotten was the restoration of Cherryfield Famine Graveyard at Bauntha Commons, just outside the town.
Cherryfield, so-called because cherry tress once grew there, was a mass-burial site during the Great Famine of the 1840s. People who died in the dreaded Callan Workhouse were conveyed there in ramshackle carts to be heaved into hastily dug pits, often without even a prayer being offered.
The site remained part of Callan’s dark past until Alice, in consultation with officers of Callan Heritage Society, decided that this part of the town’s legacy should no longer remain hidden. Her dedicated team of FAS workers set about their task with even greater zeal than that displayed on the other projects.
A stone cross was erected on the site and […]
