HAROLD’S CROSS ROAD – PHOTOGRAPHED 20 MARCH 2020
At one side of Harold’s Cross on Harold’s Cross Road is Mount Jerome Cemetery, as mentioned in Joyce’s Ulysses, originally one of the residences of an extensive family named Shaw.
It is considered Dublin’s most gothic cemetery and there lie such lumunaries as Thomas Davis, George Russell (AE), and Oscar Wilde’s father, William Wilde, and mother, in addition to members of the Guinness family and deceased members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. The remains of French Huguenots once buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard, Peter’s Row (now the location of the Dublin YMCA), which was demolished in the 1980s, are interred here.
Other famous graves include those of mathematician William Rowan Hamilton and playwright John Millington Synge. The cemetery was operated from 1837 to 1984 by a private company and now belongs to the Massey family.
The creation of the cemetery at Mount Jerome in 1836 by the Protestant Church of Ireland was to counteract the popularity of burials, even among people of their own fraternity at that time, for the new Glasnevin Cemetery opened in 1832. Initially Mount Jerome was an exclusively Protestant cemetery but was later opened up to Catholic burials. There is now also a distinct Islamic plot, to the right near the entrance.
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