Daniel O’Connell (1775 – 1847), the foremost political leader of Ireland’s Catholic majority (at the time) and founder of Glasnevin Cemetery, was my kind of guy.  An egalitarian and abolitionist, he believed in equal rights for all and that cemeteries should be open to all, regardless of religion or ability to pay.

The mass famine of the mid-1800’s resulted in massive deaths of the poor, and they had to be buried somewhere!  They were buried at Glasnevin Cemetery, and to date there are more people buried in this cemetery (1.6 million) than alive in Dublin. There are only 300,000 headstones, however. Since many of the people buried there were so poor and their families could not afford burial, their bodies were stacked up to ten people in a single grave.

We visited the cemetery with our group and were led on a tour by an excellent docent who shared stories of Daniel O’Connell and some of the people buried in this beautiful and fascinating cemetery.

(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)

During our free afternoon, Bruce and I hopped on a local bus out to Howth, a suburb of Dublin situated along the coast.  It was a beautiful, sunny day (in Ireland!), so we wanted to take advantage of it and enjoy a lovely coastal walk along the seaside cliffs. Who knows if we would ever see this much sunshine again during our three weeks in Ireland? (As it turned out, as you will see in most of my future posts, we saw plenty more days just like this one!)

Coming up next:  IRISH ADVENTURE #5: A CIDER FARM VISIT ON THE WAY TO BELFAST