Perched on a hill, the stately white St. Mary’s church overlooks Ox Road in Fairfax Station. Highlighting the cemetery’s 400 or so filled graves, some dating back to the time of the Roman Catholic church’s first mass in 1860, are American and Irish national flags placed on Memorial Day.

The annual tradition of placing flags goes back nearly 30 years, according to church historian and grounds committee member John Patrick Murphy of Fairfax Station.

This Memorial Day before a special mass, a group of around 130 (plus a bagpiper) marched around the cemetery and placed the flags.

“It’s a moving time, a reminder: Look at the gravestones, One Irish name after another,” Murphy said. He explained there was a heavy concentration of Irish families in the Fairfax Station area building the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. The flags serve as a reminder of that heritage as well.

“Typically, people go about their business, go to mass. They don’t look at the graves, the names. They just walk past. This way, it allows us to highlight something. Gee, why is that flag there?”

Sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the special flag-placing and mass were for all soldiers, sailors and servicemen who have been killed in previous wars.

Though Murphy points out St. Mary’s church served a crucial purpose as a field hospital after the second battle of Manassas and Chantilly during the Civil War.

Six Union soldiers were interred at the cemetery following local battles, Murphy said, as well as one Confederate soldier, James W. Kidwell. The Union soldiers were eventually moved and reburied at Arlington National Cemetery, while Kidwell remained at St. Mary’s.