Sally hosts inSPIREd Sunday!
September 2015 - Dublin Ireland
We stopped in to Glasnevin on the Hop On Hop Off but knew we had to come back and really visit it.
Before the establishment of the Glasnevin Cemetery, Irish Catholics in Dublin had no cemeteries of their own. This was due to the repressive Penal Laws imposed on the Irish by the British who had placed restrictions on the public performance of Catholic services.
The round tower was built between 1855 and 1869 to commemorate the death of Daniel O’Connell, who had established the cemetery in 1832. Click here to see a church dedicated to him in his home town.
Glasnevin Cemetery contains many historically interesting monuments as well as the graves of many of Ireland's most prominent national figures — Charles Stewart Parnell and Daniel O'Connell as well as Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith, Maude Gonne, Kevin Barry, Sir Roger Casement, Constance Markiewicz, Brendan Behan, Seán MacBride and Christy Brown.
Michael Collins
Click here for the story of Kevin Barry. A song about him.
The Republican Plot.Click here to learn more.
Brendan Behan
The cemetery also offers a fascinating view of the changing style of death monuments in Ireland over the last 200 years: from the austere, simple, high stone erections of the period up until the 1860s, to the elaborate Celtic crosses of the nationalistic revival from the 1860s to 1960s, to the plain Italian marble of the late twentieth century. Glasnevin Cemetery has grown from its original nine to over 120 acres.
