PAUL Devaney is seen standing near the ocean. He’d come from Ireland to another island, one located between the Bronx and Queens. Devaney is talking about his great uncle, Mike Kilmurray, who emigrated to New York City.

“Maybe it’s because the Irish love their history,” Devaney says. “The old Irish, the older generation loved to visit graveyards. To not be able to do that seemed extraordinary.”

Devaney’s Uncle Mike died in 1994. Sadly, as often happens in a city of immigrants, there was no one to claim Kilmurray’s body. So, as has been happening in New York City since the 1860s, the unclaimed remains were sent to Hart Island, more commonly known as Potter’s Field.

It is estimated that over 700,000 people have been buried at Potter’s Field, which is believed to be the largest cemetery in the U.S.

Thanks to New Yorker Melinda Hunt, more and more people –- such as Longford native Paul Devaney –- are finding out about the relatives who died a lonely death in New York City.

Hunt is an author and filmmaker who has completed a documentary film profiling four families who visit gravesites of loved ones buried at Hart Island. She has also started an organization dedicated to opening up Hart Island (http://www.hartisland.org/), so that families, friends and relatives can have greater access to the gravesites.

Hunt’s Island documentary, entitled Hart Island, is scheduled to be screened at Manhattan’s Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue) on March 19.

The Hart Island cemetery is run by the New York City Department of Corrections, which generally limits access to the island.

“Usually…what you have is a person living in the city by themselves. Their remaining family might live out of state and it takes time for word to get back that the person died,” Thomas M. Antenen, a Corrections Deputy commissioner, explains in the film.

“With the remaining family not knowing (a loved one has died), of course there was no claim of the body. Once they find out ... they start doing the research back to New York City and eventually they come (to Hart Island).”

To Paul Devaney, the fact that he had trouble locating the grave of his Irish immigrant uncle was mind-boggling.

“When I came over here initially, we knew nothing about what had happened or where he was buried,” Devaney explains in the film.

He goes on to note that several New York City natives explained what “city cemetery” was –- Potter’s Field.

“This was extraordinary, that this was a place I could not actually go to,” he adds.

With the help of a priest as well as Hunt’s Hart Island Project, Devaney was, in fact, able to see where his uncle was buried.

The story, however, does not end there.

“I want to see what all the mystery is about and hopefully bring some closure to the whole thing for me, and bring him back home, tell my folks and my family what (Hart Island) is like and hopefully give other people a view into this hidden lost place,” says Devaney.

“In one of his letters in 1990, (Kilmurray) wrote that he’d like to be buried in Ireland. So I guess we’re just doing what he wants.”

On December 13, 1999, Kilmurray was “disinterred” and his body was flown back to Ireland. As we see photos of the burial ceremony in Ireland, we hear the words of that great New York poet Walt Whitman:

“I bequeath myself to the dirt/ To grow from under the grass I love./ If you want me again/ Look for me under your boot soles.”

Devaney and Kilmurray are the most prominent Irishmen in this film, but there’s another worth noting, a grizzled Department of Corrections supervisor with a thick “Noo Yawk” accent named Patrick Walsh.

It is Walsh and other supervisors who oversee the men who perform the physical burials at Hart’s Island –- prisoners. These hard men, however, are often unable to deal with the emotions of their task.

Walsh says, “It’s a tough time for inmates.” Referring to a disinterment, he adds, “They were stacked three-high. If someone is stacked on the bottom ... it’s a real tough job.”

One inmate reflects, “I don’t want to die ... with no one to care about me. Hart Island is the best rehabilitation I ever had.”

Walt Whitman could not have said it better.

(Contact Tom at tomdeignan@verizon.net)