“The church with the handsome spire, that looks so graceful among the trees, is a cathedral church, and one of the neatest kept and prettiest edifices I have seen in Ireland. In the old graveyard Protestants and Catholics lie together- that is, not together; for each has a side of the ground, where they sleep, and so occupied, do not quarrel. The sun was shining down upon the brilliant grass- and I don’t think the shadows of the Protestant graves were any longer or shorter than those of the Catholics? Is it the right or the left side of the grave-yard which is nearest to heaven, I wonder? Look, the sun shines upon both alike, ‘and the blue sky bends over all’.”
From “The Irish Sketch Book” (1843) by W.M.Thackeray after a visit to Lismore