On Thursday I went with Katy and Norah to Glasnevin cemetery outside of Dublin on the north side. It's the biggest cemetery in Dublin,not sure how many people are buried there but its somewhere in the millions. This is mostly due to the pit graves for Cholera and the famine, who knows how many people were thrown in there?
The cemetery is still very much in use, my roommate's grandparents are buried there and plots are available. We took a tour of the place which was great since it was overwhelmingly huge! The cemetery was established by Daniel O'Connell in the 1830s as a non-denominational cemetery, also one of the few places where unbaptized babies could be buried. The cemetery ended up becoming a great history museum!
Here's O'Connell's tower which simply dominates Glasnevin. It was nice of him to establish this place, not very modest when it came to his own burial place!
Celtic high cross, this was my favorite one that I saw in the cemetery.
Inside the O'Connell tower, the casket is Daniel's, but the tower also serves as a family crypt. They're hoping to have the steps in the tower restored in time for 2016 to commemorate 100 years after the rising. Someone put a bomb in here a while back, so climbing the tower is currently off-limits to visitors.
Stacked coffins in the O'Connell crypt.
Maud Gonne's grave. She was married to one of the leaders of the uprising, but is mostly known for being the one that got away from W.B. Yeats.
This is apparently the "go-to" grave design in Ireland.
As you can see there's lots of refurbishing still to be done before 2016. Some of the graves have sunken completely into the ground, to the point where you can't even see the tops.
I actually forget whose grave this is, a republican revolutionary with an Irish name, I remember that much! Very interesting design.
Michael Collin's grave, the most visited in the whole cemetery.
Parnell memorial. This is actually the cholera pit, Parnell was buried right on top because he was afraid of grave robbers. He figured the threat of cholera would be enough to deter them. Norah also said this monument makes a guest appearance in Joyce's Ulysses.
Tomb of an arch bishop of Dublin, it reminded us of Lord of the Rings!
Fancy tile work.
Another archbishop, I think this one was actually a cardinal. Either way, fancy last digs.
So, today is kind of sad because Norah went home this morning. I know she'll be happy once she's there with her family, but Dublin doesn't feel the same! I'm lucky I have some extra time, I'm making the most of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment