Fees revealed for Mayo's new columbaria

Mayo County Council is set to impose a charge of €1,700 (excluding VAT) per slot in the columbaria being planned for graveyards around the county.

The figure was revealed during a recent meeting of the council's Environment and Climate Change strategic policy committee (SPC).

Senior executive engineer Tom McDonnell told the meeting that there is an increasing demand for cremation burials in Mayo, with 25% to 30% of deaths now leading to cremation.

The first columbarium in Mayo has been built at St Tiernan’s Cemetery in Crossmolina with 60 niches (secure compartments that hold an urn with cremated remains) available and the plan is to open two more within the year, probably in Castlebar and Ballinrobe.

Mr McDonnell added that there is demand in every municipal district for a columbarium and the council intends to construct at least one per district. In Claremorris Municipal District, the proposed location is Claremorris town graveyard, while in Westport the council is looking at the Aughagower Cemetery as a likely location. Right now, the focus is on the design, and the hope is for the first three to go to tender this year and work to start on them in 2027.

In terms of how slots will be allocated, he said there will be an application form to fill for each niche, that each niche will hold two urns and possibly a third urn, if requested. There will be a one-off cost of €1,700 per niche, payable to the council, plus an additional €400 charge will apply for opening and closing in regard to the housing of a third receptable, while a €300 charge will be applied for the removal of any urns.

There will also be charges for the inscriptions on the niche slot, to be paid by the niche holder, which will be generated by a monumental sculptor and there will be a limit on what can be inscribed in accordance with the door size on the niche. There will also be a procedure to follow if someone wants to remove the urn and take the ashes back.

The niches will be four by three feet in size, approximately a third of the size of a typical single grave plot and consequently will reduce the amount of space being used for internment in graveyards. It will also cost a lot less than a typical double graveyard plot and the costs of erecting a monument around that.

Mr McDonnell said the policy on fees for purchasing a niche had been set by the council’s chief executive and senior management team.

SPC chairperson Cllr Gerry Murray said it was clear the whole county of Mayo would not be accommodated with crematoria in one fell swoop and welcomed the development of a policy to manage the process.

Cllr Peter Flynn said the €1,700 charge “seemed like a lot” and wanted to know was the public given a “feed-in” on the policy.

Cllr Flynn said he had recently visited Mount Jerome Cemetery and Crematorium in Harold's Cross in Dublin, which opened a columbarium in 2000 and has hosted 31,000 funerals for cremation, and was amazed at the amount of cremated remains stored there.

“A whole raft of walls has been created there, very simply, I am guessing at no massive cost. I think we should be rolling out some of these across the county; they don’t need to be fancy. When a loved one dies it is already a stressful time and you don’t want to be adding to it. This should be a breakeven service and not one for profit.” 

Mr McDonnell said the council will have spent €100,000 erecting the columbarium in Crossmolina and that it will house 60 niches, so it is just working out as cost neutral. He added that Mayo is following the standard in most counties, adding: “We have gone with a stone niche that is specially made. If you went with cheaper materials, such as steel, it may corrode, and we have to think down the line, in terms of these being durable and there forever.” 

Cllr Harry Barrett welcomed the policy, saying there is massive demand for the service and said he looked forward to Castlebar having its own columbarium. 

Director of Services Joanne Grehan said that all comments were noted that “a lot of work has gone into developing the policy and that in terms of the Mount Jerome in Dublin, it had probably had much longer to determine its own policy around cremation urns".

The draft policy will now go before the full plenary session of Mayo County Council for consideration by all local representatives. 

Meanwhile, Cllr Murray noted that burial ground bylaws are also to be reviewed and will come before the committee as an agenda item at a future meeting.

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.