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MEMORIAL DAY MASS
Memorial Day is an occasion to particularly honor those who have died in military service but also a day for more general expressions of memory, as people visit the graves of their deceased relatives whether they had served in the military or not.
This Monday, Memorial Day, May 28, Seattle's Irish community is invited to remember those buried at St. Patrick's Cemetery, the Seattle area's small (4½ acres) Irish Pioneer Cemetery that was founded by Irish immigrants in 1880 in an area then called O'Brien and now part of Kent. Open air Mass will be celebrated at St. Patrick's starting at 10:30 am, accompanied by Irish music and a Knights of Columbus Honor Guard.
Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, was an obvious name chosen for the cemetery where on the tombstone inscriptions you can find the names of places like Tipperary, Donegal, Cork and Galway, and names like Hogan and Hayes, Costello, Cummings and Culhane, Mullen, Madigan and Monaghan, Downey, O'Grady and more. Richard O'Connell, an immigrant from Limerick, donated 4½ acres on the hill overlooking the Kent Valley to be a cemetery for the Irish families in the area. The earliest burials appear to be those of Morgan O'Brien and his wife, Catherine, natives of Ireland who both died in 1880 according to the tombstone inscription.
On file at the Seattle Public Library is a nine page tombstone inscription list entitled: "St. Patricks Cemetery, O'Brien, Wash. (near Kent)." Here is the listing of St Patrick's Tombstone Inscriptions that was compiled in 1960.
 The farm where St. Patrick Cemetery was started was owned by the O'Connell Family, shown here around 1904 with Richard and Sarah in the middle, children Richard and Catherine at rear, and Monica in front. Richard O'Connell was born in Co. Limerick in 1839 and Sarah (Mullen) was born in Co. Galway in 1870. After his first wife died, Richard married Sarah in 1887 and they had three children, Catherine (b. 1888), Richard (b. 1890), and Monica (b. 1897). Richard died in 1935 and Sarah died in 1952. Today, Richard and Sarah O'Connell's grandson, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren still live just down the hill from St. Patrick on what remains of the original O'Connell family farm.
The first burials at St. Patrick
MORGAN O'BRIEN / Born in Tipperary Co. Ireland / Died Dec. 18, 1880 / Aged 65 yrs. / Also His Wife / Catherine, / Born in Co. Claire (sic), Ireland / Died Dec. 3, 1880 / Aged 56 yrs.
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