Arthur Guinness and Other Notable Burials
Until the construction of the turnpike road in the adjoining valley in 1729, Oughterard was situated on the main road from Dublin to Limerick and Cork. According to "Arthur's Round" (see below) Arthur Guinness's grandfather William Read, a local farmer, started selling home-brewed ale from a roadside stall in 1690 to troops en route to the battles in the Jacobite wars. Guinness was taken back to Oughterard to be buried in the Read family plot in January 1803. Local tradition holds that Guinness was born at the Read household, where his mother returned to her childhood home, in the tradition of the time, to give birth. Three prospective birth sites have been identified, imost likely at Oughterard 53°16′35″N 6°33′41″W / 53.27626°N 6.56126°W / 53.27626; -6.56126., but also possibly at Read homesteads the adjoining townlands of Boston 53°15′58″N 6°30′21″W / 53.26611°N 6.50584°W / 53.26611; -6.50584., Castlewarden 53°15′56″N 6°32′41″W / 53.26561°N 6.54465°W / 53.26561; -6.54465. and Huttonread53°17′03″N 6°33′41″W / 53.28413°N 6.56126°W / 53.28413; -6.56126. which takes its name form the Read family., all within Oughterard parish.
Later in 1803 Arthur Wolfe, Lord Kilwarden who lived at Newlands, Co Dublin—the most famous victim of Robert Emmet's 1803 rebellion—was buried here in the Wolfe mausoleum, a grave that dates to 1650. James Phipps, "A Captain of Insurgents" who took part in the Battle of Ovidstown in 1798, and then moved to America where he died in 1826, is commemorated, as is William Kennedy from nearby Bishopscourt, who was posthumously decorated for bravery having lost his life in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II.
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