Glasnevin Cemetery, the largest cemetery in Ireland, first opened its gates in 1832 after a series of events prompted Daniel O'Connell to establish a place where people of all religions could bury their dead with dignity. It was initially named Prospect Cemetery.
The land was consecrated by Monsignor Yore in September 1831 and five months later, Michael Carey of Francis Street in Dublin was the first person to be buried there. Glasnevin Cemetery, as we know it now, has grown from its original nine to over one hundred and twenty acres. Over one million men and women are laid to rest there.
Cemetery History
Daniel O'Connell
Prior to the establishment of Glasnevin Cemetery, Irish Catholics had no cemeteries of their own in which to bury their dead and as the repressive Penal Laws of the eighteenth century placed heavy restrictions on the public performance of Catholic services, it had become normal practice for Catholics to conduct a limited version of their own funeral services in Protestant cemeteries. This situation continued until an incident at a funeral held in Dublin provoked public outcry when a Protestant sexton reprimanded a Catholic priest for proceeding to perform a limited version of a funeral mass.
The outcry prompted Daniel O'Connell, champion of Catholic rights, to launch a campaign and prepare a legal opinion proving that there was actually no law passed forbidding praying for a dead Catholic in a graveyard. O'Connell pushed for the opening of a burial ground in which both Irish Catholics and Protestants could give their dead dignified burial.
Cemetery History
Prospect Cemetery
With the passing of the 'Act of Easement of Burial' Bill' in 1824, a committee was formed to administer the proposed cemetery. A small plot of land had been acquired f'or this purpose at Goldenbridge, Dublin but soon proved insufficient. After some investigation, a second site amounting to nine acres, was bought at Glasnevin - to be named Prospect Cemetery. After consecration in 1831, the cemetery buried the first of over a million people to be interred there.
Towers to Foil Body-Snatchers
On approach to Glasnevin, the first impression is one of high walls and towers. In the cemetery’s early years, recent burials in particular had to be guarded against body-snatchers, otherwise known as ‘Resurrectionists’ or ‘sack-em-ups’, who infamously stole corpses to sell them on to medical schools for anatomy students in Ireland and beyond. The most roguish practitioners were Burke and Hare, both Irishmen, but they, fortunately, practised their trade in Scotland and not in their own back yard. To prevent body-snatching in Glasnevin, the authorities built a high wall of best Dublin calp around the old cemetery perimeter, interspersed at intervals with tall,
battlemented towers. These were splendidly re-pointed as part of a Fás scheme in the 1980s and 1990s, when its apprentices did a fine job also in re-painting the metal railings. During the night, watchmen used stand guard on top of the towers to stop grave-robbing and, on entering their employment, these men had to sign a document saying that they would not accept gratuities or take bribes from the body-snatchers, and they also bound themselves to report any suspicious nocturnal activity in the grounds. The tactic worked, and no corpse is known to have ever been spirited away from Glasnevin. Yet scarcely had these protecting towers been built in the 1830s and early 1840s when they became redundant, as the medical profession were thereafter able to get adequate supplies of bodies from among the unclaimed dead in the workhouses operating at the time. So – a tower in time saves nine, to misquote the old saying.
