THE HUGUENOT CEMETERY DUBLIN (PETER STREET) ACT, 1966

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE CLOSING OF THE BURIAL GROUND FOR FRENCH PROTESTANTS, COMMONLY CALLED THE HUGUENOT CEMETERY, SITUATE AT PETER STREET IN THE PARISH OF ST. PETER AND CITY OF DUBLIN, TO PROVIDE FOR THE VESTING OF THE SAID CEMETERY IN W. & R. JACOB & CO., LIMITED, AND TO PROVIDE FOR OTHER MATTERS CONNECTED WITH THE MATTERS AFORESAID. [22nd June, 1966.]

WHEREAS the burial ground for French Protestants (commonly called the Huguenot Cemetery) situate at Peter Street in the Parish of Saint Peter and City of Dublin, is now vested in Francis la Touche Godfrey, James Chaigneau Colvill, Ashley Powell, Christabel Frances Godfrey, Maureen Franks, and Thomas Barrington Jellett as Trustees of the French Huguenot Fund pursuant to a scheme for the administration of the said Fund approved by the Vice-Chancellor of Ireland by Order dated the 1st day of July 1902 and made in a matter entitled “High Court of Justice (Ireland) Chancery Division In the Matter of the French Huguenot Fund and of the Statute 52 Geo. III Cap. 101” and amended by Order of the Honourable Mr. Justice Barton, dated the 24th day of April, 1917, and made in the said matter:

AND WHEREAS no interments have taken place in the said cemetery since 1879:

AND WHEREAS W. & R. Jacob & Co., Limited have proposed to purchase the said cemetery from the said Trustees upon the terms contained in the proposal set out in the Schedule to this Act:

AND WHEREAS by Order of the Honourable Mr. Justice Kenny dated the 5th day of October, 1964, and made in a Matter entitled “1964, No. 92 S.P. The High Court. In the Matter of the French Huguenot Fund, and in the Matter of the Charities Act, 1961 between Francis la Touche Godfrey James Chaigneau Colvill Ashley Powell Christabel Frances Godfrey Maureen Franks Thomas Barrington Jellett Plaintiffs and the Attorney General and W. & R. Jacob & Co., Limited Defendants” it was (inter alia) ordered and adjudged that the Plaintiffs as Trustees of the said Charity be and were thereby at liberty to introduce and promote a Private Bill in the Oireachtas for the purpose of enabling them to accept the said offer of the Defendants W. & R. Jacob & Co., Limited and of allowing the said Defendants to carry into effect the proposals contained in their said Offer:

AND WHEREAS it is expedient that the said cemetery be closed and that interments therein be discontinued and that W. & R. Jacob & Co., Limited be empowered to remove the remains of all deceased persons therefrom and use the said cemetery for and in connection with its undertaking:

AND WHEREAS the purposes aforesaid cannot be effected without the authority of the Oireachtas:

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED BY THE OIREACHTAS AS FOLLOWS:—

1 Interpretation.

1.—In this Act—

“the cemetery” means the cemetery or burial ground for French Protestants, commonly called the Huguenot Cemetery, situate at Peter Street in the Parish of Saint Peter and City of Dublin, and referred to in part two of the schedule annexed to the scheme for the administration of the French Huguenot Fund approved by the recited Order dated the 1st day of July, 1902, as amended by the recited Order dated the 24th day of April, 1917, and therein referred to as “plot of ground on the South side of Peter Street in the City of Dublin, marked No. 9½ on said Ordnance Sheet and thereon identified as ‘French graveyard (disused)’ ”;

“the Company” means W. & R. Jacob & Co., Limited;

“the proposal” means the proposal set out in the Schedule to this Act;

“the Trustees” means Francis la Touche Godfrey, James Chaigneau Colvill, Ashley Powell, Christabel Frances Godfrey, Maureen Franks, Thomas Barrington Jellett and such other persons or person who may be the Trustees or Trustee for the time being of the French Huguenot Fund.

2 Purchase and sale of cemetery.

2.—(1) The Trustees may accept the proposal and thereupon the Company shall purchase and take and the Trustees shall sell to the Company the cemetery, upon and subject to the terms contained in the proposal, and the proposal shall be binding upon the Company and the Trustees and shall be carried into effect.

• (2) Upon payment by the Company to the Trustees of the sum payable by the Company under the proposal, the cemetery shall by virtue of this Act be transferred to, and belong to and vest in the Company for an estate in fee simple free from incumbrances and, subject to the provisions of section 3 of this Act, may be used by the Company for and in connection with its undertaking.

3 Removal and re-interment of remains, removal of monuments, etc.

3.—(1) Before any part of the cemetery is applied or used by the Company for any purpose, the remains of all deceased persons interred therein shall be removed and re-interred in accordance with the provisions of this section.

• (2) Before the remains of any deceased person are removed from the cemetery under this section the Company shall publish a notice on three successive days in three daily newspapers circulating in Dublin, and the notice shall have embodied in it the substance of subsections (3), (4), (5), (6), (8) and (11) of this section.

• (3) Within two months after the date of first publication of the notice required to be published by subsection (2) of this section a person who is an heir, executor, administrator or relative of any deceased person whose remains were interred in the cemetery may give notice in writing to the Company of his intention to undertake the removal of the remains and, subject to the provisions of subsection (4) of this section he shall thereupon be at liberty within two months after the date on which notice is given by him under this subsection, to cause the remains to be removed from the cemetery and to be re-interred in any other consecrated burial ground or cemetery in which interments may lawfully take place.

• (4) If any person giving notice under subsection (3) of this section fails to satisfy the Company that he is such heir, executor, administrator or relative of a deceased person as he claims to be, the question shall be determined by the High Court on the application of either party in the above recited proceedings and the High Court shall have power to make an order specifying by whom and the period within which the remains in respect of which notice is given shall be removed and re-interred and providing for such other matters as may be appropriate.

• (5) The expense of any removal and re-interment under subsections (3) or (4) of this section (not exceeding in respect of remains so removed from any one grave the sum of fifty pounds) shall be defrayed by the Company, and in case two or more remains are so removed from any one grave that sum shall be apportioned equally according to the number of remains so removed.

• (6) Not less than two months after the date of first publication of the notice required to be published by subsection (2) of this section, the Company shall remove or cause to be removed from the cemetery the remains of all deceased persons interred therein other than remains in respect of which notice has been given under subsection (3) of this section and cause them to be re-interred in accordance with the rites of the French Reformed Church in a plot of ground in Mount Jerome Cemetery consecrated in accordance with the rites of the French Reformed Church or in a plot of ground so consecrated as aforesaid in such other burial ground or cemetery within the City of Dublin wherein interments may lawfully take place as shall be approved by the Trustees in writing and to be purchased by the Company in accordance with paragraph 4 (a) of the proposal.

• (7) The Trustees shall provide out of the purchase money for the perpetual care of the plot purchased in accordance with subsection (6) hereof.

• (8) In case a person gives notice to the Company under subsection (3) of this section in respect of the remains of a deceased person and fails to cause the remains to be removed and re-interred within the period specified in that behalf in this section or in any order of the High Court, the Company may remove or cause to be removed from the cemetery the remains and cause them to be re-interred, in case a consecrated burial ground or cemetery is specified for re-interment of the remains in any such order, in that consecrated burial ground or cemetery, or in any other case, in such other consecrated burial ground or cemetery wherein interments may lawfully take place and the Trustees consider suitable.

• (9) The exhumations shall be carried out under the supervision of an officer of the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses of Dublin and in accordance with such directions as the Dublin Chief Medical Officer may give with respect to matters affecting or likely to affect the public health.

• (10) Each re-interment shall be carried out under the supervision of an officer of the sanitary authority in whose functional area the place of re-interment is situate and in accordance with such directions as the Chief Medical Officer or County Medical Officer for that area may give with respect to matters affecting or likely to affect the public health.

• (11) All monuments or tombstones relating to the remains of any deceased person removed under this section shall, at the expense of the Company, be removed and re-erected in the place of re-interment of the remains or in such other place as the High Court may direct on the application of the Company or any heir, executor, administrator or relative of the deceased person, or in case no such application is made, as the Trustees consider suitable.

4 Cemetery to cease to be burial ground on removal of all remains.

4.—If and when the remains of all deceased persons shall have been removed therefrom, the cemetery shall cease for all purposes to be a burial ground and the Company shall not in respect thereof be under any restriction or disability affecting disused burial grounds as such and the cemetery shall be held by the Company freed and discharged from all ecclesiastical, charitable and other Trusts, uses, purposes, obligations, disabilities, and restrictions whatsoever.

5 Mortuary chapel.

5.—It shall be lawful for the Company to demolish the mortuary chapel situate in the cemetery.

6 Expenses.

6.—The costs, charges and expenses preliminary to and of and incidental to the preparing, obtaining and passing of this Act shall be paid by the Company out of the funds of the Company.

7 Short title.

7.—This Act may be cited as the Huguenot Cemetery Dublin (Peter Street) Act, 1966.

SCHEDULE

To

The Trustees of the French Huguenot Fund

WE, W. & R. JACOB & CO., LTD., of Bishop Street in the City of Dublin (hereinafter called “the Company”) HEREBY OFFER to purchase from the Trustees for the sum of Twenty thousand pounds the Fee Simple interest in the site of the French Huguenot Cemetery situate in Peter Street in the City of Dublin, upon and subject to the following terms and conditions:

• (a) Buy out a plot of ground in Mount Jerome Cemetery (or in some other Dublin City Cemetery as shall be approved by the Trustees) and shall rail off and permanently enclose such plot of ground.

• (b) Carefully search for and remove with all due reverence and in a manner to be approved by the Trustees all human Remains found in the Peter Street Huguenot Cemetery and shall have such Remains re-interred in the plot so acquired as aforesaid.

• (c) Erect at the said plot of ground a suitable Memorial Stone or Tablet setting forth thereon that the Remains found in Peter Street Huguenot Cemetery have been removed to and re-interred in the said plot, and shall cut, engrave or otherwise delineate on such Stone or some other permanent Memorial the names and dates of death of the persons buried in the said Peter Street Huguenot Cemetery so far as same can now reasonably be traced, also remove and re-erect any headstones that are intact in the Graveyard.

• (b) If the Court shall direct that this offer ought to be accepted (either without modification or with such modification as may be agreed by the trustees and the Company) the Company shall pay and discharge all costs charges expenses and outlay reasonably incurred by the trustees in obtaining or seeking to obtain such statutory or other authority as may be necessary to enable the terms hereof to be carried into effect and of and incidental to the sale of the site of the said cemetery to the Company or otherwise in carrying or attempting to carry the terms hereof into effect.

IN WITNESS whereof the Company has hereunto caused its Common Seal to be affixed this 10th day of December One thousand nine hundred and sixty three.