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Cemetery of Birth: Glasnevin's Republican Heroes

© Laura Harrison McBride

In modern Irish politics—from the time the Easter Rising of 1916 was being planned until tomorrow—nothing is ever simple, and nothing is as it seems. That was wildly true of the men and women who contributed in some major way to the Easter Rising, which was the single event in hundreds of years of events (the Wolfe Tone Rebellion, the Potato Famine and more) that finally led to the removal of the British crown from the Emerald Isle. (Because of the political presence of Great Britain in Northern Ireland, many believe that it is not gone yet. But, as they say, half a loaf—or in this case, four-fifths of a loaf, is better than none.)

Despite the death and destruction, the Easter Rising was an occasion for joy, the birth of a nation. Glasnevin Cemetery, the largest in Ireland, is the final resting place for the remains of a great number of those whose names are known and revered across the Republic of Ireland as martyrs to freedom. Glasnevin Cemetery, established in 1832, consists of 120 acres, holding more than 1.2 million. It holds the mortal remains of paupers, 25,000 of them in a relatively tiny plot. The paupers were often buried at a rate of 60 a day during the Famine.

It also holds the remains of the two most well known heroes of the fight for independence, Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera.

Eamon De Valera was born in New York City on October 14, 1882, or Irish and Spanish descent. By 1913, he was in Ireland, where he had joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood (commonly called the Fenians). During the Rising, he was the commander at the outpost at Bolands Mills. Taken prisoner, he was sentenced to death but reprieved. Eventually, for other acts, he was sent to prison in England; he escaped in 1919, returned to Ireland and was elected first President of the new ‘shadow’ government of what nationalist regarded as the legitimate government of Ireland, the Dail (Parliament.) From then through 1922, when Michael Collins was gunned down (some believe at the behest of DeValera, despite the fact that they had been good comrades in arms at one time, and, in fact, Collins had engineered DeValera’s escape), DeValera was always at the forefront of the topsy-turvy world that was Irish politics, and Irish-English relations. He is credited with maintaining Irish neutrality during World War II, no mean feat with British pressure to join the Allies. He was elected President of the Republic of Ireland in 1959, and again in 1966. He died on August 29, 1975. (In case you are thinking that it was cowardly and not neighborly for Ireland to avoid involvment, think of this: It had been less than 20 years since the country had been ravaged by the Rising and resulting civil war. The economy was new and fragile. In this, DeValera was correct; German bombings would have reduced the ancient island's nascent country to nothing in no time flat. To survive at all, Ireland had to remain neutral.)

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