Updated on January 7, 2006
Explored on November 6, 2005

We were looking at Microsoft's MapPoint software one day around the area of the Houston Co. Railroad Bridge.  We noticed there was a cemetery on the map marked as "Irish Cemetery" that didn't have a road.  The cemetery overlooks Bass Bay on Kentucky Lake and the long-abandoned Louisville & Nashville Railroad.

MapPoint has a GPS locator built in so we wrote down the approximate coordinates of the cemetery.  We drove down to the northern portion of Benton Co. to Wynn Cemetery Road (14 miles south of Paris Landing, "as the crow flies").  The plan was to hike from Wynn Cemetery through the woods to Irish Cemetery.  It would be a 1.2 mile one-way trek.

When we got to Wynn Cemetery, we look out our handy GPS unit.  With no trails to be seen from Wynn Cemetery, we turned on our GPS and begin to walk through the woods.  And we mean WOODS.  We headed due north about 300 yards over a hill and to Bass Bay.  The idea was to walk along the shore until we reached the correct latitude.

We saw many interesting things along the shore, such as the abandoned L&N railroad line which has been almost completely wiped out due to 62 years of erosion from Kentucky Lake.  We also saw some really neat trees and rocks.

We reached our latitude point and begin walking back into the woods due south.  Watching our GPS, we could tell we were about to reach our coordinates.  Then, as we reached them, we saw 100 feet in front of us the Irish Cemetery.  It was completely desolate and unkempt.  There was no access via vehicle whatsoever, but we did see an ATV trail leading from the back.

We spent about 15 minutes there looking at all the stones.  The burials mostly occurred between 1883 and 1925.  One of the gravesites had the tomb above ground, but had completely caved in (this could have been something else, but I'm pretty sure it was a tomb).

It was getting near sunset, so we decided we had better go.  With no flashlights, we had to get back to our car before nightfall.  Thankfully, we were able to make it just as it was getting dark.

However, without the aide of the GPS, we couldn't have made it back.

Click here to visit a webpage containing information on who was buried here.