Had a lunch meeting yesterday in the hotel in Shandon, Cork, which once was the North Infirmary Hospital. (The food is vastly improved!).
While I was waiting I took a stroll out the back of the hotel. It’s in the shadow of the landmark Shandon Steeple and church. The line between the hotel and the graveyard of the church is unmarked. I was horrified to discover that the entire graveyard has been vandalised and that it’s just left there.

A view of the Steeple, taken from the graveyard, where visitors climb to ring bells and look out over the city.
Looking directly in the opposite direction towards the Maldron Hotel, showing the desecrated graves.

Isn’t there something really sick about an individual who takes part in the wrecking of a family grave …

… and something sick about a society that leaves it in this state.

Many of the names on the broken and faded gravestones are common Cork names. For example, this one is of the MacSwiney family — the same family as Terence, the Lord Mayor of Cork who died on hunger strike in 1920.

Most of the headstones have been damages by either hammer or graffiti. Some have been prised open.

What a shame.