Find your ancestors in Cantwell's Memorials of the Dead

Brian J. Cantwell (1914-92) was probably the best known and most industrious transcriber of gravestones and church memorials in Ireland. During the last 20 years or so of his life he transcribed and then printed 11 volumes of graveyard and church memorial transcriptions. These volumes were a comprehensive treatment for Counties Wicklow and Wexford, and also covered a large proportion of south County Dublin. Other transcripts by him were either published in journals (Galway and Kildare) or remained unpublished (Clare, Cork and Sligo) until 2005 when they were published on CD by Eneclann. They are now available here.

This dataset includes:

• Scanned images of all Cantwell’s original transcripts
• 24,392 memorials
• 60,790 names

Cantwell’s transcriptions included all visible and legible gravestones or memorials in graveyards with a date of 1880 or before, and all surviving interior church memorials.

Geographic coverage

The data is complete and comprehensive for Counties Wexford and Wicklow, and for those locations visited in the other counties listed below.

Structure of the Transcripts

Each of the 11 printed volumes has the following components:

1. Location map based on an OS map for the region. This is useful as it shows the precise place for each graveyard or church.

2. Indexes

3. Introduction

4. Transcripts

The transcripts for each location are grouped together and begin with an introduction to that place. This is often important as it explains the history and physical condition of the monuments. The memorials for each section (either a church and/or graveyard) are organized in alphabetical order using the lead surname, which appears in capital letters. Users should note that not all the names on a memorial will have the same surname as the lead Surname.