|
Headstone inscriptions at St. Patrick Cemetery
|
|
|
|
Click images to see a copy of a file at the Seattle Public Library, a nine page tombstone inscription list entitled: "St. Patricks Cemetery, O'Brien, Wash. (near Kent)." Look for inscriptions that list birthplaces as 'Donnegaal', 'Claire', 'Corrick' and 'Tippari'. The inscriptions were copied on October 2, 1960.
|
|
A Fiddler and a
Bagpiper
will play beforehand, and starting at 10:30 am, while the
4th Degree Knights of Columbus
serve as an Honor Guard and the
National Anthem
is played by a trumpeter, the
US flag is raised
from half-staff to full mast. That is followed by Fr. John Madigan celebrating Mass.
Following Mass, the day's ceremonies will conclude with the
laying of a wreath
on the grave of
Richard & Barbara O'Connell and the
playing of Taps
.
Both O'Connells are WW-1 veterans and it was Richard O'Connell's Limerick-born father who founded St. Patrick Cemetery in 1880.
Note that the Mass and other ceremonies are held outdoors, and it's suggested you bring a lawn chair!
ST. PATRICK CEMETERY
St. Patrick Cemetery is located on
Orillia Rd S at S 204th St in Kent
, just east of Sea-Tac Airport (take Exit # 152 off I-5, head 1 mile east). It is located in an area once called O'Brien that was settled in 1868 by brothers Morgan and Terrence O'Brien, natives of Co. Tipperary, for whom the area was named.
The small 4½ acre cemetery was founded in 1880 by Richard O'Connell from Co. Limerick who is pictured at left in 1909 with his family. He set aside a small plot on his farm to be a cemetery for the Irish families in the area and many of the original Irish-born O'Brien pioneers were later buried there. The first burials at St. Patrick were in December 1880, those of Morgan O'Brien from Tipperary and his wife Catherine, a native of Co. Clare.
It seems likely that some of the graves at St. Patrick Cemetery hold the remains of US Civil War veterans and of Irish Famine Immigrants, since burials at St. Patrick
Cemetery began only 15 years after the US Civil War and less than 30 years after the Great Irish Famine. While Memorial Day is primarily a day to remember those who died in service to our nation, it is also a day to remember and honor all who have died.
|
|
ST. PATRICK STATUE
|
|
| The inscription on the statue at St. Patrick Cemetery |
|
|
| |
| |
|
