Glasnevin, Dublin, a (very) short introduction

Situated in North Dublin, Glasnevin is the single largest cemetery in Ireland. It covers over 120 acres and more than 1.5 million people are buried there (more than live in Dublin now, and it's also larger than the world-famous Père Lachaise in Paris). From its inception, its history was inextricably linked with that of Irish nationalism. It also holds a special place in my heart, as it has been over the past ten years a place for wanderings, discoveries, inspiration for research, and even friendship. A single blogpost could never do justice to such a hugely important place, so this is just a quick introduction to its history and to my history with it. Future posts will focus on more specific aspects or graves, whether related to my research or not.

So let's start with some history. I'm not exagerating when I say Glasnevin was always linked to Irish nationalism, as its very opening  was the result of a campaign led by Daniel O'Connell to obtain a major Catholic burial ground in Dublin. As a result of the Penal Laws, Catholics had no official burial grounds, and limited freedom to perform their rituals. In practice, they were mostly able to perform those rites with no limitations on the part of authorities, but occasional tensions did arise with Anglican clergy, as was the case at Saint Kevin's Churchyard (Camden Row) in 1823, where an Anglican sexton reprimanded a Catholic priest for performing Catholic rites. Public outrage ensued, and O'Connell included the call for a proper burial ground in his campaign for Catholic Emancipation. Prospect Cemetery finally opened in 1832 in the Glasnevin district (hence its new  name). It was to be eocumenical and managed by a Trust headed by O'Connell himself, and it remains under control of the Glasnevin Trust to this day. Its relation to Irish history is so deep it has had its own museum since 2010 (the only such museum in the world to my knowledge).

The very first funeral to take place in Prospect was that of an 11 year old boy named Michael Carey on 21 February 1832, and the first funeral of political significance was that of John Philpot Curran in 1837. A liberal Protestant, he had opposed both the Union of Ireland with the U-K and the United Irishmen's politics, although he defended several of them in court. He had left Ireland in 1814 and died in London in 1817. Twenty years later, his body was brought back to be burried in Glasnevin. This was the first of a long series of political funerals, commemorations, and repatriations which would make of Glasnevin the nationalist necropolis of Ireland. Ten years later, in 1847, O'Connell himself would be repatriated from Italy to be buried there. In 1861, the Fenians inaugurated the republican plot when they repatriated the remains of Terence Bellew McManus from the US. They would famously do the same in 1877 with the remains of John O'Mahony (founder of the Fenian Brotherhood), of Parnell in 1891 (repatriated from England and estranged from the Liberal Party after the scandal of his relationship with Katharine O'Shea), or of Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa in 1915 (one of the early Fenians, exiled to the US). A few lesser-known Fenians were also repatriated after their deaths, for example Edward Duffy who died in an English prison in early 1868, and many who are not buried there have a monument to commemorate their involvement in Irish nationalism.

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My own relationship to Glasnevin can be said to have started with this grave. I came to Dublin for the very first time in April 2010. At the time I was living in England and working on my M2 thesis (in France the Master degree lasts two years and you need to turn in a thesis at the end of each year). The first one had been about Young Ireland's use of the Nation newspaper between 1842 and 1848 to popularise cultural nationalism. The one I was working on then was about the Fenians and how they used Young Ireland's cultural legacy as a tool for the political advancement of republicanism. I knew several of them were buried in Glasnevin so I decided to go and wander around looking for names that rang a bell.

John Devoy was one of them. Born in Kill, Co.Kildare, he joined the Fenians early and served in the French Foreign Legion for a while before coming back as a local organiser of the movement. He was instrumental in the rescue of the founder James Stephens from prison in 1865, and took part in the 1867 rising, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In 1871, he was released and exiled to the US, where he continued to raise money and advocate for an Irish republic until his death in 1928. His body was repatriated to newly autonomous Ireland and he was given a State funeral.

So here I was, taking a picture of this beautifully ornate cross built there for a major figure of the Fenian movement, when suddenly someone popped out from behind the monument asking me "Do you know who that is?" That was Patrick, he lived not far from the cemetery, was passionate about it, about Irish nationalism in general, and about Young Ireland in particular, and he found it very strange that a tourist would take a picture of Devoy's grave, he was little known outside Ireland. We spent several hours talking and visiting the cemetery together (I even got sunburnt! in Dublin! in April!), and we have been back a few times since. Pat is probably the best guide you could dream of to explore Glasnevin!

Discoveries I made that day included the typically Fenian graves decorated with the Irish hound, round tower, shamrock, harp and sunburst (here the grave of the Fenian poet John Keegan Casey, more on these in a future post)...

...or the 'pile of rocks' erected over the graves of 1916 Volunteers.

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The memory of this very first visit has never left me, and it did play a part in my choice to focus on Fenian funerals for my Ph.D.  During another visit, Devoy again led to an unexpeted encounter; this time with a young woman from South Africa who had come looking for his grave because she was related to him. Glasnevin has many more stories to tell, but these will be the objects of individual posts, or this one would get much too long. If you have an opportunity to visit, do not hesitate! And if you want to learn more, you could read the books by Shane MacThomáis, or watch Aoife Kelleher's wonderful documentary One Million Dubliners.