Bodenstown Graveyard
graveyard

Bodenstown Graveyard (Irish: Reilig Bhaile Uí Bhuadáin) is a cemetery located in County Kildare, Ireland. Containing a ruined medieval church, it is best known as the burial place of the Irish patriot Wolfe Tone (1763–1798).
History
The stone church dates to before 1352, in which year it belonged to Great Connell Priory, and measures 12 m (39 ft) by 7 m (23 ft). It was described as being in good condition in 1612 but was ruined by the 19th century; all that remains are the west gable and north and south walls.
After his conviction for treason at a court-martial in Dublin and his subsequent death in November 1798, Tone was buried next to his father at Bodenstown. Semi-official commemorations are believed to have begun in the 1840s. In "Tone's Grave", Thomas Davis describes his visit there c. 1843.
Pilgrimages to Wolfe Tone's graveside were first held in 1873, the 75th anniversary of his death. After gaps in the 1880s, they resumed in 1891, and have been held every year since, except in 1906–10 and 1921. The ceremony, involving a march from Sallins railway station to the graveyard, took place on the Sunday closest to Tone's birthday, 20 June.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4089963. Authority coordinates are 53.267, -6.667. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1763, 1798, 1352 and 1612.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bodenstown Graveyard” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.