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Grave undertaking  MALCOLM
ROGERS pays a visit to Glasnevin Cemetery.
This Thursday, there will be even more flowers on Michael Collins’
grave in Glasnevin than usual. It’s St. Valentine’s Day and
the most-visited tombstone in the cemetery will be covered in flowers
and wreaths. Some ladies will even leave notes for their hero.
But it’s not just St. Valentine’s Day which is a busy time
at Big Mick’s grave. His simple Celtic Cross is festooned with floral
tributes throughout the year and it was like that even before the film
Michael Collins came out. Now, however, visitors regularly ask the guides:
“Where is Julia Roberts buried?”
They mean Kitty Kiernan — the Big Fella’s fiancée died
in 1945 and is buried near his grave.
Glasnevin, the largest cemetery in Ireland, is the last resting place
of Eamon de Valera, James Connolly and Daniel O’Connell. Writers
and poets lie interred alongside cardinals and archbishops. Brendan Behan,
Luke Kelly, Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and Frank Duff, the founder
of the Legion of Mary all take their eternal rest together.
Here too are the graves of Gerald Manley Hopkins, Zozimus and Roger Casement.
There’s a plot dedicated simply to Cholera Victims, another remembers
the Famine, plus one small grave bears the bleak message: Air India child
— a reference to the Air India 747 which crashed off the coast of
Ireland.
Now a modern suburb of Dublin, Saint Mobhi is believed to have established
a seat of learning in Glasnevin on the banks of the River Tolka as far
back as the sixth century. Both St. Colmcille (Iona fame) and St. Canice
(founder of Kilkenny) were reputed to have studied under him.
Others buried in the vicinity include former Fine Gael minister for justice
and defence general Sean MacEoin and general Eoin O’Duffy founder
of Fine Gael.
Eamon de Valera’s grave is a muted affair — just pebbles and
a small headstone for his wife Sinead and their children. Liverpool-born
Jim Larkin lies nearby. He died in 1947 — all they found was a pound
in his pocket.
Perhaps the most poignant memorial to one of the heroes of the Easter
Rising is that of Elizabeth O’Farrell who was 17 in 1916. She looked
after James Connolly in the GPO after he had been shot. Elizabeth was
also the one who went to the British with a white flag and said the Irishmen
wanted to talk peace. She then delivered the surrender note from Pearse
and Connolly. A midwife and nurse in Holles Street Hospital, she dropped
dead many years later on Bray promenade.
Elizabeth O’Farrell’s name rarely appears in books about the
Rebellion. If she’d been a man they’d probably have called
a railway station after her.
The centre-piece of the cemetery is the O’Connell round tower —
Daniel O’Connell’s remains lie interred in a vault beneath
the tower. In the vicinity lie the earthly remains of Kevin Barry, Maud
Gonne MacBride, Constance, Countess Markiewicz (the first woman elected
to the British House of Commons), The O’Rahilly, Jeremiah O’Donovan
Rossa and Frank Ryan, who led the Irish contingent of the International
Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. Near the Republican plot lie the graves
of men who died in the first and second World Wars and Bertie Ahern’s
parents.
A great variety of headstones jostle for space in Glasnevin. High crosses
abound, the most striking of which can be found around the O’Connell
tower. One of the most impressive is the monument to Ellen Burke (beside
the grave of Roger Casement) which shows scenes and motifs from the life
of St. Patrick. The monument to John Keegan Casey (the Fenian balladeer
and poet) features similar decoration including a harp, a shamrock, a
round tower, a Celtic cross and a wolfhound.
Before you leave Glasnevin, pay your respects to 11-year-old Michael Casey
of Francis Street who died of consumption on February 22, 1832. He became
the very first person of the 1,200,000 — of a great many denominations
and nationalities — to be buried in Glasnevin.
Tours of Glasnevin Cemetery are free and take place at 2.30pm on Wednesdays
and Fridays. |
