Overview
Burgage Cemetery is here in its present form because a valley was drowned. Between 1937 and 1939 the Liffey was dammed to create the Poulaphouca Reservoir, and the old burial ground at Burgage More went under the rising water. The remains were lifted and reburied on this rise just north-west of Blessington town centre, above what are now the Blessington Lakes; a memorial put up in 2001 names those who were moved. It is a small, well-kept graveyard rather than a grand one, and it repays a quiet ten minutes, mostly for one thing.
St Mark’s high cross
That one thing is St Mark’s Cross, a tall granite high cross that stands at the south-western end of the site. It came up from Burgage More with the graves when the valley flooded, which is why a medieval church cross now sits among nineteenth-century headstones. It is the reason the cemetery is worth a stop at all, and the reason local heritage groups fought to keep the ground tidy.
Beyond that, be a little wary of the confident detail you’ll read elsewhere: the exact height, a precise century and a National Monument listing get repeated a lot but aren’t easy to stand over. What is plain enough is the cross itself, weathered granite, out of scale with everything around it, and clearly older than the graveyard that grew up beside it.
The grounds
For years the cemetery was left to go over. The Burgage Cemetery Committee, backed by Blessington Tidy Towns, turned that around: volunteers cleared the overgrowth, tidied the stone altar area and laid a circular path that loops the whole site. That path makes it easy to walk gently and take in the rows of nineteenth-century headstones, which are a decent record of local family history. Both Find a Grave and BillionGraves carry digitised records from here, so it’s a useful call if you’re tracing Blessington ancestors.
Getting there and practical information
- Parking: this is the catch. There’s no proper car park at the cemetery, and a local councillor has been pressing Wicklow County Council to provide one, so don’t rely on finding a space at the gate. The sensible approach is to park in Blessington town centre and walk out.
- On foot and by bike: the cemetery sits close to the Blessington Greenway, the 5.5 km traffic-free trail that links the town centre to Russborough House along the reservoir shore, which is the pleasantest way to reach it.
- Public transport: Blessington town centre, a short walk away, is on regular bus routes.
- Facilities: none on site, no toilets or café, so use the town before or after.
Nearby
The cemetery folds neatly into a wider morning in west Wicklow. The Blessington Greenway runs from here to the Palladian house and art collection at Russborough, and the wider Blessington Lakes offer angling, watersports and mountain-backed walking. Park in town, walk out along the Greenway, take in the cross, and carry on to Russborough rather than making a special trip for the graveyard alone.