Council not keen to open out-of-hours vehicular access to Ballyglass Cemetery

A plea to have evening access for cars for those wishing to visit Ballyglass Cemetery received much support when brought before officials at the September meeting of the Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District.

The request came from Cllr Ken Glynn, who said that extending the opening times and vehicular access at Ballyglass in both evening time and at weekends would benefit many people who can’t visit during the day.

The official written response from the district executive stated that the cemetery is accessible to pedestrians 24 hours per day and to vehicles from 8am to 4pm on weekdays and 9am to 3.30pm at weekends.

“Vehicular access is restricted after these hours to ensure public safety,” the response went on to state, adding that the vehicular access hours had been extended temporarily in the weeks preceding cemetery Sunday.

Cllr Glynn said many people who worked during the day could not visit the graves of loved ones during the existing vehicular access hours.

He said there are also elderly people who depend on others for transport and could need access outside the current opening times.

He was not seeking to extend staff working hours, but wanted the council to explore whether physical access could be extended later into the evening.

Cllr Glynn went on to praise the work of the man who oversees the cemetery, saying the district should be made aware of the “height of praise” he received from people who had contacted him.

“The public appreciation towards him, his efforts and his work on a daily basis is second to none,” Cllr Glynn said.

Cllr Emily Wallace supported the motion and said she had raised the issue in September 2022, including the possibility of installing electric gates.

She said many families were unable to visit graveyards during working hours because of work, mobility or family commitments.

“Could we as a district not look at even providing one late evening opening?” she asked.

Cllr Julie McCourt also supported the proposal and suggested that an electric barrier could potentially be timed to allow access without requiring a person to lock a chain on a gate.

Council official Mary Goldsberry stressed that Ballyglass Cemetery did not close and was accessible to pedestrians 24 hours a day.

She said the council could examine possible solutions but warned that providing additional staffing to ensure public safety would be “resource heavy and budget heavy”.

District engineer Pat Kavanagh was hesitant about extending the hours year round. “I don’t think we’d want to be encouraging vehicles into Ballyglass on a dark night in the winter,” Mr Kavanagh said.

“But possibly in the summer, maybe we could look at keeping it open a bit later, maybe in the brighter evenings.”

He said any extension would require a slight increase in the cemetery budget.

He said the issue was not the gates but the management of traffic within the cemetery, where a number of graves had been accidentally damaged by vehicles.

Mr Kavanagh said the council had already installed speed ramps on some of the hills within the cemetery because vehicles were travelling too fast.

Cllr Andrew Duncan also supported the proposal and suggested that two evenings a week could be kept open until around 8pm, up to a couple of hours before dusk, as a possible compromise.

“At least it’s affordable,” he said. “You’re not putting in somebody on a full time type of basis, you know. It might just be worth looking at.”