The Crusheens
Originally, funerals passed along established routes into Cong and stopped at certain spots to leave a small wooden cross and say a prayer. These places were referred to as “Crusheens” or sometimes “Cresheens” (from the Irish “croisin” meaning cross).
According to local tradition, it was the practice of the Abbot of Cong to bring the processional Cross of Cong to certain points along the road to meet all funerals bound for their final resting place. In the 16th century, Cong Abbey was suppressed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. The Lord Abbott at the time, Aeneas McDonnell, meeting a funeral on its way to the Abbey grounds, formed a cross of branches of a tree, which he placed on a wall, saying; ‘’Thus let it be done for all time’’
According to the 19th century Irish antiquarian Margaret Stokes:
“This Irish custom seems to belong to the worship of the Instruments of the Passion and to be connected with the Passion of Christ. The hawthorn and whitethorn and blackthorn all claim to have been used for the sacred Crown of Thorns. Sir John Mandeville says “They maden hym a crowne of the branches of the Albiespyne that is Whitethorn” and Giles Fletcher says:
“It was but now they gathered blooming May,
And of his arms disrobed the branching tree,
To strow with boughs and blossoms all thy way;
And now the branchlesse trunck a crosse for thee
And May, dismaid thy coronet must be.”
The form of procession carrying in our hands ivy, sprigs of laurel, rosemary or other evergreens is said to be emblematic of the soul’s immortality. So this bearing of the cross to the point where at the meeting of four roads that road is chosen which leads directly to the grave is emblematic of the soul’s submission; while the laying down the cross upon the thorny branch that made the Saviour’s crown is an instance of Christian symbolism still lingering among our peasantry that ought not to pass unrecorded” Stokes, Margaret. Three Months in the Forests of France: A Pilgrimage in Search of Vestiges of the Irish Saints in France. United Kingdom, G. Bell, 1895.
Stokes records that the tradition exists in parts of France and Spain but in Ireland is confined to Cong and Kilmore in Co. Wexford.
The tradition in Cong continues to this day and the most prominent Crusheen is on the Clonbur Road half a mile north of the village at the Joyce Monument. As each funeral approaches the village, a friend or relative of the deceased will leave a wooden cross at the Crusheen site when the procession stops to pray.