URBAN PHOTOGRAPHS

Urban Expression And Depression By Infomatique

Graveyard

ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE CEMETERY

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ST. PATRICK’S COLLEGE CEMETERY – MAYNOOTH COLLEGE CAMPUS MAY 2021

Yesterday I had to abandon my visit to Maynooth because of heavy rain that began almost as soon as I had arrived. When I got up today the weather was really good so I decided to give Maynooth one more try and when I arrived at 2pm the weather was warm and sunny so I took the opportunity to visit the University Campus.

It may surprise many visitors to discover that Maynooth College has its own graveyard. The cemetery can be found past the Junior Garden on campus.

While the College was founded in 1795, the first to be buried in the new College Cemetery was Rev Francis Power from Cork (1737 – 1817), who was the first Bursar and Vice President, was appointed Professor of French in 1802, and died in 1817. Four members of the College staff, who died before 1817, were buried in Laraghbryan Cemetery on the Kilcock Road, west of the Campus.

There are a number of students, Sisters and staff resting in the College Cemetery. Many of the students died of consumption, as tuberculosis was called at the time. The Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul provided the healthcare for students and staff. The most recent burial was that of Maurice Dunne from Tralee (1939 – 2009). He had worked in the College since 1961 and died on his 70th birthday. [Note: I noticed two new graves today 17 May 2021].

Years ago I came across the following story: “If you visit Maynooth today, you might come across an old building on the campus called Rhetoric House. You might notice that one of the windows on the top floor is boarded-up and you might wonder why. If you ask someone, they will tell you this is The Ghost Room. Many years ago, students who went to Maynooth would live on the top floor of the building. There was one young man who was assigned to sleep in Room No.2. One day, when he didn’t show up for lectures, his friends went looking for him. They found his dead body lying in a pool of blood on the floor of Room No.2 with his throat slit from ear to ear. Clutched in his hand was a bloody razor and it appeared that he had taken his own life. Ireland was a Catholic country and, at the time, suicide was seen as a terrible sin.”

“The matter was hushed up by the college and the student was buried in an unconsecrated part of the college cemetery, away from the other graves.”

As you may have guessed, according to local legend, this story was repeated the next year [note: according to the records the deaths were nineteen years apart]. Some locals claim, that three people died in a similar manner while in the same room but while the official records indicate that the two students are buried in within the walls of the graveyard there is no mention of a third student.

GLASNEVIN CEMETERY MAY 8 2021

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GLASNEVIN CEMETERY MAY 8 2021

Glasnevin Cemetery is a large cemetery in Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland which opened in 1832. It holds the graves and memorials of several notable figures, and has a museum. When I visit I usually avoid the newer sections and concentrate on the older and historic areas.

A few weeks ago I used a 105mm lens and many of the photographs were unusable because of camera shake and that surprised me very much as I have always avoided using a tripod and never had problems with camera shake. I could not find any problems with the camera so I was bit concerned … maybe I was getting old or maybe I am drinking too much wine.

Today I used a 70-200mm lens which I never got the opportunity to use with my Sony A7RIV until today. I needed to establish if camera was going to be in issue going forward and this was the ideal lens. As a result of the session in Glasnevin Cemetery I have decided that camera shake is not really issue but I do need to spend more time getting use to the lens.

The cemetery contains historically notable monuments and the graves of many of Ireland’s most prominent national figures. These include the graves of Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, Michael Collins, Éamon de Valera, Arthur Griffith, Maude Gonne, Kevin Barry, Roger Casement, Constance Markievicz, Pádraig Ó Domhnaill, Seán MacBride, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, James Larkin, Brendan Behan, Christy Brown and Luke Kelly of the Dubliners.

The grave of Michael Collins, the nationalist leader who was killed in the Irish Civil War in 1922, is among the most visited sites in Glasnevin. Around him were buried at least 183 soldiers of the Irish Free State. In 1967 their names were recorded on memorial around Collin’s grave.

In 1993 a mass grave at the site of a Magdalene laundry, institutions used to house “fallen women”, was discovered after the convent which ran the laundry sold the land to a property developer. The Sisters from the Convent arranged to have the remains cremated and reburied in a mass grave at Glasnevin Cemetery, splitting the cost of the reburial with the developer who had bought the land.

The cemetery also offers a 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 the 1960s, to the plain Italian marble of the late 20th century.

In 2009, Glasnevin Trust in co-operation with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) began identifying the graves of Irish service personnel who died while serving in the Commonwealth forces during the two world wars. These names are inscribed on two memorials, rededicated and relocated in 2011 to near the main entrance. A Cross of Sacrifice was erected in the cemetery, in a joint Irish-British commemoration ceremony, to mark the First World War centenary. As of July 2019, there are 215 service personnel of the Commonwealth of both wars identified as buried here.

BOHERMORE CEMETERY IN GALWAY

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BOHERMORE CEMETERY IN GALWAY – RESTING PLACE OF THE FAMOUS AND THE NOT SO FAMOUS

This was my second visit and while I did visit again in 2018 and 2019 the weather was too wet and windy for me to spend enough time there.

In 2016 I described this as a Victorian Style Graveyard but some people disagreed with this description. For example one person, who provided much useful information, commented as follows “ Victorian Style means meandering paths, lots of trees, and some water features to make it more like a park to visit. Also, Victorian cemeteries tend to be a bit more non-conformist with religious affiliation, but Bohermore, as you saw, is still very religious and pretty much just laid out to maximize the use of space.”

Another person complained, in a very long email, that I was in breach of copyright which was a claim that I did not understand. Note I had had asked for permission to photograph and was invited to return.

According to Wikipedia “The origins of the Victorian cemetery were based on Victorian ideas of regulation and structure, much like other parts of Victorian society such as workhouses, asylums and prisons. The Victorian cemetery was a new way of burying people due to innovative landscape design and architecture. After 1800 dedicated garden cemeteries were created to solve earlier problems with overcrowding and sanitation. Their designs were based on the idea of Arcadia.”

Bohermore is located in Galway, Ireland. The name is derived from the Irish literally meaning “the big road”. On the last day of my 2016 visit to Galway I walked at random around the area and came across this interesting cemetery and it was not what I would have expected if I had been looking for it. It is very well organised, well maintained and rather modern which may explain why the locals refer to it as the ’new cemetery’. This year, during a break in the weather, I revisited the cemetery but for some reason I was not as impressed as I had been back in 2016 but I cannot explain why I was less impressed.

As already mentioned I visited again in 2018 and 2019 but had to cancel my 2020 visit to Galway. I have booked a hotel for a week in June but I beginning to doubt that I will be able to travel because of travel restrictions.