Cemetery at Saint Columba’s Long Tower Church

Considering how small Saint Columba’s Church is when compared to the nearby Saint Eugene’s Cathedral, it seems that Saint Columba’s Church is much more interesting than the nearby cathedral. Saint Columba’s Church has a longer history than the relatively newly built cathedral, which is why people would tend to prefer this church. As it turns out, there was an original structure here prior to the church being built. Back in the 12th century, this was place of worship for Catholics, it was only toward the end of the 1700s that a church was built, though still not as big as the current church is. This was largely funded by donations by the local community.

It was through successive renovations that the current church came to be as it is today. The last major renovation was in the early 1900s. More than a century has already passed since the church was built, it also has places for the dead. There was a rather prominent cemetery just near the statues of Jesus outside the church. They were beautiful Irish crosses, ones with a large circle in the intersection of the cross. There were a few laid to rest here and I think some of them would be the priests who served here. The cemetery wasn’t that big either, at least it was fenced out to prevent people like me from trampling all over it.

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