As graveyard visits become relegated to Sundays alone, it would seem death doesn’t fit into our lifestyles anymore. After a tour of Glasnevin Cemetery in north Dublin however, it becomes startlingly clear why we should remember the dead not just for their achievements in life, but also for what they give us in their deaths.

Glasnevin Cemetery is of particular note not just because of its size (120 acres, with over 1.2 million buried within) but also because of its famed inhabitants. Since its foundation in 1832, it has seen practically every famed fighter (in the political and violent sense) for Irish liberation pass through its gates.

Daniel O’Connell, for example, politician and emancipator of Catholics in Ireland, was buried here in 1847. A round tower of gargantuan proportions is built over his tomb and is visible from Dublin Bay. The funeral of Charles Stewart Parnell, the so-called "Uncrowned King of Ireland", was the largest the cemetery has ever seen, with an attendance of over 300,000. Parnell is buried above the Cholera Grave - it was his own request to be buried anonymously. (A large stone from his estate in Avondale has been subsequently installed to mark the spot).

Close by too, is the Pauper’s Grave. In its heyday, up to 60 people were buried here at a time. Shane McThomais, historian and tour guide, estimates that there are over 25,000 people buried in this tiny plot alone. He points out too, that amongst the cenotaphs and mausoleums, there are anecdotes that live on. Kavanagh’s pub next door is where the term "going for a jar" originated, as old Ma Kavanagh dished out the stout and whiskey to the gravediggers in jars. The most vandalised grave? The modest headstone of Eamonn De Valera. The grave most attended to with flowers? Michael Collins.

Possibly the most precious commodities to come out of Glasnevin, however, are the old records assiduously kept by the grave attendees. After the Custom House fire of 1922, during which an entire repository of administrative records was lost, these documents provide a wealth of family history from 1832 onwards. A database currently being set up by FÁS, the State training organisation, will prove immensely invaluable to historians in assessing causes of death. Social research will benefit too: the profession of the departed is recorded in their death certificates.

Another project of interest to come out of FÁS quarters here is a book written by one of the course co-ordinators, Shane O’Shea. Death and Design in Victorian Glasnevin provides a fascinating overview of Victorian life in Ireland, the political forces at play and also how (considering death was almost fetishised by the Victorians) the Cemetery became a political pawn. And as O’Shea points out, recently some modern funeral processions are entering the Cemetery complete with carriage drawn by horses dressed up with black plumes, in the style of the Victorian era.

There’s something mildly comforting in the romanticising of death; what a way to go.