Templecurraheen Graveyard
Templecurraheen Graveyard sits on a hillside above Carrigtwohill, looking toward Cork Harbour. It is still in use, and it is also a record of the parish: names on stones, an unmarked famine mound, and the ruined walls of a church that was already a parish church in 1291.
The place is also written Templeacurraheen. Its older name is Kilcurfin, from Irish Cill Coraichín, “church of the little swamp.” Templecurraheen is thought to come from Teampallcurrachin, “church on a small patch of boggy land.” The hilltop is usually dry, but a spring under the ground still wells up after heavy rain — which explains the boggy names.
Church ruin and protected site
By the late thirteenth century Kilcurfin was a working parish church (it appears on a list of parish churches in 1291). After the Reformation the small church was not kept up and fell into ruin. The crumbling east and north walls still stand. Burial never stopped. Headstones here go back to the mid-1700s, among them the Coppinger tomb of Barryscourt (1788).
The glebe cemetery and church ruins are legally protected structures, recorded by the National Monuments Service as CO075-015001 and CO075-015002.
People and ground
Among those buried here are John Collins (32) and Michael Collins (30) of Carrigtwohill, killed at the Tithe War massacre of Gortroe on 18 December 1834 and laid with their own people rather than at Gortroe. At the back of the old graveyard, near the church ruin, a raised unmarked mound is held by local tradition to be a Famine plot. Clergymen’s graves include Rev. Father John O’Neill, Prior of the Carmelites at Castlelyons, who died in 1769 and is buried west-facing beside the Coppinger tomb — a Penal-Times story of refuge.
Register, photographs, and visiting
Cora Finn recorded every legible inscription, with a row-and-plot map, supported by her husband Michael, caretaker of the graveyard. Those records, grave photographs, and parish stories are published on the dedicated site templecurraheen.ie, which currently holds 614 documented burials. Official records from this Historical Society were also brought into that register.
- Location: Templecurraheen, Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork
- Coordinates: 51.924805, −8.278583
- Closest Eircode: T45 EO21
- Access: rural road; limited parking
- Visiting: open during daylight hours
Search the register, browse the gallery, and read the stories on templecurraheen.ie. The society’s own Templecurraheen Graveyard page has further photographs and the Evening Echo report of the information-board unveiling.