The animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland is legendary and has gone on for centuries. However, what many did not know is that the war is not just between the living, as the dead are impacted as well. Catholics in Dublin did not have a sacred space in which to bury their dead until 1831. The passage of the Act of Easement of Burial in 1824 enabled the creation of a cemetery that permitted the burial, along with the proper rituals, of both Protestants and Catholics. That cemetery was the famous Glasnevin Cemetery, where some of Ireland’s most famous dead permanently reside.
Shane MacThomais became a tour guide at Glasnevin and took it upon himself to learn as much as possible about the people buried within Glasnevin, the famous as well as the obscure. This book allows those of us who may never make it to Glasnevin the chance to virtually wander among its tombs and learn about its residents.
Among these residents is Margaret Flynn, who died in 1911 at the age of 112. Margaret was born in the year that America’s first president died, and she lived through famines, the troubles, the American Civil War, and other historic milestones. Sean Foster was another Dubliner who knew the tragedy and grace of being Irish. He died at the age of four when he was struck by a bullet during Ireland’s 1916 Easter Uprising.
Among the others memorialized by MacThomais are a Nazi spy, members of the Huguenot community, and the gravediggers who dug the graves for their peers. Michael Collins, Ireland’s revolutionary and political leader, is also discussed within these pages.
Sadly, Shane MacThomaiss died by suicide in Glasnevin Cemetery in 2020 and is now buried among those he wrote about so eloquently.