The Lough Memorial Stone

I love old graveyards. It could be said that my interest stems out of the fact that one day soon I will be visiting such a place on a one way ticket but I assure you that's not the reason at all.

What's fascinating is the hidden history and often times the tragic stories to be found in such places. Here's a tombstone which I hadn't read before on previous visits to the old cemetry at Kilbride just outside of Arklow.

William Lough was a Methodist Minister, where he ministered I don't know. How many couples he married I also don't know, nor have I a clue how many folk he buried.

His son William M. Lough died in Harrismith in the Natal, South Africa. He was only 27. What took hin at such an early age? What was he doing in South Africa? Harrismith was a strong Methodist enclave. Perhaps he also was a minister in the church.

His other son, Dr. George Lough lived in Hastings in the UK. He was drowned in a boating accident along with, as the inscription tells us, "his faithful servant Mike Skelly".

All lives which at the time were doubtless filled with purpose and importance. Now only remembered on a crumbling stone. As William Butler Yeats had inscribed on his tombstone, "Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horesman, pass by"