Ethnic Cemeteries - A Visit to Ireland?

Tired of flowers?  I promise there are no flowers featured in this post.  Some cemeteries are definitely religiously oriented and the one in this post is a Roman Catholic Cemetery.  This one also seems to me to be predominately an Irish cemetery.  I say this for two reasons; there are a large number of Celtic Crosses and most, but not all, of the family names are Irish.  I come from a Danish-Irish background myself.  My mothers grandparents came to this country from various parts of Ireland.

St. Joseph Cemetery is located in Waterbury, Connecticut and I have often passed by it.  I live in this community.  This was a beautiful Spring day and the cemetery was a quite refuge from the busy streets beyond.

There were several stones similarly designed here.  This was one of the nicest. The image was nicely carved and the engraving on the base stone was exquisite.

This statue rests on a pedestal that indicates that this is the marker for the Parish Priests.  I think that this is a nice way to do this.  I have seen many individual markers for Clergy, but this one is a nice way to remember the Parish Clergy as a whole.

These  are two of the many cross monuments.  They are among the smaller of the crosses, but they are nice in their own way.

 This large monument was a part of what appears to be a family cluster of monuments.  This is the largest of the cluster and some of the smaller ones can be seen to the right.

Perspective can make a great difference.  This is the same monument from above, but from the end.  Notice the nice straight lines of the other stones.

Remember I mentioned Celtic Crosses?  There are three here.

There are several more here.

I especially love the carving work on this final Celtic Cross.  You can click on the picture to see a larger version.  These are very traditional Irish and Celtic designs.  The IHS comes from somewhere else ( it is a monogram for the Greek name of Jesus ( I H C O Y C).  The C is a sigma, so IHS or IHC is the first three letters in the Greek name for JESUS.  If you pronounce the J as a Y then you will pronounce the name as the Greeks did.  This use of the monogram for Jesus is common in Celtic crosses.  Let me point out there are other explanations for the IHS. The other designs on the cross predate Christianity.