Glasnevin Cemetery was established in 1832 under the direction of Daniel O’Connell for the purpose of burying “people of all religions and non”. The cemetery encompasses 124 acres and 1.5 million burials. Glasnevin has great national heritage through the social and historical history of the people buried there from all walks of life over 178 years.
Famous people interred there include the founder of the Cemetery - Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, O’Donovan Rossa, Eamon De Valera, Michael Collins, Countess Markiewicz, Maud Gonne McBride, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Brendan Behan, Christy Brown, Jimmy O’Dea, Luke Kelly, Alfred Chester Beatty, Michael Cusack and Liam Whelan. Less acclaimed people include victims of the Great Famine, the Cholera outbreaks and the Air India crash as well as the babies in the old Angels plot which was renovated and inaugurated by Presi dent McAleese in 2005. The new Angels plot (1970 to present day) is currently undergoing renovation. Biographies of all famous people can be found on our Virtual Cemetery Map
The Cemetery’s most famous architectural feature is the 51 metre high O’Connell Tower, designed by George Petries and made of Wicklow granite, where the remains of Daniel O’Connell are interred in a family crypt directly below the tower. It is the highest round tower in Ireland. The crypt and tower have recently been restored in conjunction with the OPW and are open to the public for the first time since 1970.
The Mortuary Chapel, designed in the 1870s, is appointed with stone carvings by James Pearse (father of Padraig and Willie).
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.
