While reading a recent newsletter of the Genealogical Society of Ireland (available on-line at their website www.familyhistory.ie), I came upon an interesting column written by Aiden Feerick. He writes about the importance of cemeteries as a family history resource  - "graveyards are open air archives" - and tells about two websites he's found useful. The following quotes come from his column:

• www.interment.net - "Has an active Irish network. It covers all the counties in Ireland north and south and relies on volunteers. Typically, there is a short history of the graveyard, a general photo and a transcription of the legible headstones. The website is freely accessible and the inscriptions are arranged in alphabetical order. The downside is that not all cemeteries have been transcribed and that it is not a complete listing of burials in any particularly graveyard. Since the concentration is on legible inscriptions, it tends to concentrate on the 20th century."
• www.irishgraveyards.ie - "Started in Co Mayo in 2007 by a surveyor called Michael Durkan. Its approach is quite different. Each graveyard is surveyed professionally. Every grave is plotted and numbered using a combination of GPS and eye plotting. When a graveyard was completed, a draft was displayed outside the graveyard allowing the local people to come forward with information about the unmarked graves and names not included in the headstones. All headstones were photographed and appear on the website alongside the address, date of death, plot number, and section of the cemetery. This is a new and interesting departure in the recording memorials especially since the website is free to access and download. The only downside is that most of the graveyards surveyed are west of a line from Clare to Derry."  Note: More Irish cemeteries have been commissioned for surveying so the coverage will improve in the future.