Tripatini contributor Anthony Toole writes:
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¨If this was not in fact the highest point in Dublin, it certainly felt like it. After climbing the 198 steps to the top of Glasnevin Cemetery's Daniel O’Connell Tower (below) - Ireland's highest round tower - I was able to gaze over the entire city, laid out almost like a map. It stretched from the western limits, past the airport to the north, by way of the Hill of Howth, the Irish Sea and the Liffey River mouth round to the Dublin Mountains in the south. This amazing revelation was the culmination of one of the most fascinating and enlightening days I have ever spent in this nation’s capital.
We had arrived quite early in the day, and while awaiting the start of our guided tour, spent an informative hour in the impressive visitor centre/museum (built in 2010), where we learned something of the history of the 124-acre national cemetery. Until the early 19th century, Irish Catholics could only be buried - for a fee - in a Protestant graveyard. Politician Daniel O’Connell spearheaded the passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act in 1829, lifting many of the restrictions on Catholics long imposed by the British government, and subsequently set up Glasnevin as a burial place not just for Catholics but for people of all religions and none. Indeed, a wall in the visitor centre contains symbols of many of the more than 25 world religions that are represented here. Other displays contain relics of some of the people buried here and models depicting gravedigging methods, while a room is dedicated to victims of the so-called Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19.¨
Read more in his post Ireland´s National Cemetery: Glasnevin in Dublin.
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