The Castle Cemetery

The Old Crypt at The Castle Cemetery

The castle cemetery is a classic upright stone burial ground with many large crypts that house the remains of the rich elite from the castle's past. When you enter the grounds you are amazed at the age and detail of many of the gravestones and crypts. However one crypt stands out above them all.
There is no name inscribed upon the top beam like all of the other crypts, and it is darkened as if it had been exposed to fire. The legends are sketchy and vary depending on who you talk to. But the basics of the crypt legends go like this. Inside the crypt lies an undead body of a real honest to goodness blood sucking creature of the night. He was a wealthy man who fell ill after a trip to Romania and soon after returning to the castle he died of consumption. He was buried in the crypt on the southern hillside of the Cemetery, and within a week strange things began to happen. Dead bodies would be found in the grounds that surrounded the graveyard. Their blood had been drained and there were the classic teeth marks on the neck. It was the maintenance man who lived on the grounds who found out the evil creatures secret and the attacked and burned the crypt during the daylight to rid the castle of this evil abomination. The family name was scraped from the tomb stonework as a warning to all who came near. Its doors were chained and locked shut never to be opened again. But look! The door is open and a shadowy figure moves within.....................

Celtic Cross Grave Marker

Celtic Cross Grave Marker

In Ireland, it is a popular legend that the Celtic Catholic cross was introduced by Saint Patrick or possibly Saint Declan during his time converting the pagan Irish, though no examples survive from this early period. It has often been claimed that Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity with the sun cross, to give pagan followers an idea of the importance of the cross by linking it with the idea of the life-giving properties of the sun. However this theory is now thought unlikely by most art historians, who think an origin from crosses carrying a victor's wreath around their intersection is more likely. Such a cross is found on the reverse of the Liudhard medalet from Canterbury in England in the 590s.

A distinctive Insular tradition of erecting monumental stone high crosses began by the 8th century, and possibly earlier. They probably followed earlier versions in wood, perhaps faced in metalwork. Some of these 'Celtic' crosses bear inscriptions in runes. Standing crosses in Ireland and areas under Irish influence tend to be shorter and more massive than their Anglo-Saxon equivalents, which have mostly lost their headpieces, and therefore perhaps required the extra strength provided by the ring. Irish examples with a head in Celtic cross form include the Cross of Kells, Ardboe High Cross, the crosses at Monasterboice, and the Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnoise, as well as those in Scotland at Iona and the Kildalton Cross, which may be the earliest to survive in good condition. There are surviving free-standing crosses in Cornwall, including St Piran's cross at Perranporth, and Wales. Other stone crosses are found in the former Northumbria and Scotland, and further south in England, where they merge with the similar Anglo-Saxon cross making tradition, in the Ruthwell Cross for example. By about 1200 the initial wave of cross building came in to an end in Ireland.
A Celtic cross in a 16th century church in Hiiumaa, Estonia

The Celtic Revival of the mid-19th century led to an increased use and creation of Celtic crosses in Ireland. In 1853 casts of several historical high crosses were exhibited to interested crowds at the Dublin Industrial Exhibition. In 1857, Henry O'Neill published Illustrations of the Most Interesting of the Sculptured Crosses of Ancient Ireland. These two events stimulated interest in the Celtic cross as a symbol for a renewed sense of heritage within Ireland.

New versions of the high cross were designed as fashionable cemetery monuments in Victorian Dublin in the 1860s. From Dublin the revival spread to the rest of the country and beyond. Since the Celtic Revival, the ringed cross became an emblem of Celtic identity, in addition to its more traditional religious symbolism. Alexander and Euphemia Ritchie, working on the Isle of Iona in Scotland from 1899 to 1940, popularized use of the Celtic Cross in jewellery.