The last known pauper to be buried in Bully’s Acre was in 1928 and was witnessed by a local lad of 11 years old, who later recalled:
'I took a short cut across the railway past Bully's Acre and I saw this vehicle coming under the railway bridge. It was a low vehicle with glass sides.
'There was a man leading a brown pony with a plain coffin inside the small carriage. Another man was walking behind carrying shovels and I believe that these two men were inmates of the 'Spike'.
'I followed the hearse into Bully's Acre and the coffin was taken and put into a grave and covered up. There were no clergy there, so I said a prayer.
'I asked one of the men who the dead person was and he told me that it was a man from Annagassan and that he had died in the Spike and had no one belonging to him. I shall never forget that funeral?'
Hundreds if not thousands of burials have taken place there, from possibly the 1830s onwards, people of all ages and backgrounds.
For years, Bully’s Acre was an eyesore, overgrown and rubbish piled on its sacred soil.
Then, just a few years ago, a group of volunteers took on the task of cleaning up the place and today, it stands tall and proud.
There are ongoing efforts to secure its future for the generations to come and as the group remark, “we just want to respect and honour those that are buried here. That’s why we did the work.”
For their efforts, the Friends of Bully’s Acre are the latest BD/Drogheda and District Chamber ‘Community Champions’.
Community at its finest…..