Initially I decided not to include a sound track but that idea did not really work but I must admit that it is close to impossible to find appropriate background music for a visit to a graveyard. Anyway, I selected the music because it is what my Grand Aunt liked.
Then Mount Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands every hour. Too many in the world. Ulysses, Chapter 6, Hades episode, James Joyce.
I was in the Harold’s Cross area today so I took the opportunity to visit Mount Jerome Cemetery where two of my Grandparents and a Grand Aunt are buried. I had not realised that it was the 8th of December.
Historically, for Irish Catholics, the festive period began on 8 December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, with many putting up their decorations and Christmas trees on that day, and runs through until 6 January, or Little Christmas. Today, in modern Ireland it is the big Christmas shopping day.
Mount Jerome Cemetery & Crematorium is situated in Harold’s Cross on the south side of Dublin, Ireland. Since its foundation in 1836, it has witnessed over 300,000 burials. Originally an exclusively Protestant cemetery, Roman Catholics have also been buried there since the 1920s.
The name of the cemetery comes from an estate established there by the Reverend Stephen Jerome, who in 1639 was vicar of St. Kevin’s Parish. At that time, Harold’s Cross was part of St. Kevin’s Parish. In the latter half of the 17th century, the land passed into the ownership of the Earl of Meath, who in turn leased plots to prominent Dublin families. A house, Mount Jerome House, was constructed in one of these plots, and leased to John Keogh. In 1834, after an aborted attempt to set up a cemetery in the Phoenix Park, the General Cemetery Company of Dublin bought the Mount Jerome property, “for establishing a general cemetery in the neighbourhood of the city of Dublin”.
The Funerary Chapel in the cemetery was the first Puginian Gothic church in Dublin. It was designed by William Atkins.
The first official burial happened on the 19th of September 1836. The buried deceased were the infant twins of Matthew Pollock.
The cemetery initially started with a landmass of 26 acres and grew to a size of 48 acres in 1874.
In 1984, burial numbers were falling, thus the Cemetery was losing revenue and began to deteriorate. A crematorium was needed to regain revenue and deal with plant overgrowth on the estate. In 2000, Mount Jerome Cemetery established its own crematorium on the site.
Sinéad O’Connor was a truly unique and iconic artist, and her death is a great loss to the world. In her memory there have been a number of memorials.
I visited Phoenix Park on Friday and at the bandstand near the Zoo I came across what I would describe as an impromptu memorial to Sinéad O’Connor … sorry about the quality of the photographs but my camera was giving me problems and I did not want to reposition any of the items.
Impromptu memorials to the deceased have become a common feature of the national and international landscape and they have greatly increased in frequency here in Ireland and especially in Dublin. They take many forms and represent various types of deaths; nonetheless, they have in common the expression of mourning for the deceased, regardless of whether or not the mourner personally knew the deceased. The site of the impromptu memorial may be located by the roadside, as in the case of a motor vehicle fatality, or outside a building associated with the deceased. In this instance it was a bandstand which may have been chosen as Sinead was a very popular musician.
The Bandstand at Phoenix Park is a freestanding octagonal-plan cast-iron bandstand, built c. 1890. It is located in the Hollow, a natural amphitheatre in the park, near the People’s Garden.
The bandstand was manufactured by Musgrave & Co. of Belfast, as marked with an ornamental escutcheon on one of the pillars flanking the steps. It is surrounded by tarmcadam hard standings, with grass and mature trees beyond.
The bandstand was originally used for military bands, but it is now used for a variety of events, including concerts, recitals, and dance performances. It is also a popular spot for weddings and photo shoots. The bandstand is a beautiful and historic landmark in Phoenix Park. It is a reminder of the park’s rich history of music and entertainment. It is also a popular spot for people to relax and enjoy the outdoors