Ebook Historic Graves in Glasnevin Cemetery

Glasnevin Cemetery, two miles from the General Post Office, Dublin, was opened for interments in 1832. Golden Bridge Cemetery, on the south-west of the city, had been opened two years previously, owing chiefly to the exertions of Daniel O'Connell, who saw his coreligionists mulcted in the payment of excessive burial fees, and hampered in their spiritual ministrations at the graveside by the wanton interference of a privileged and bigoted ascendency. The demands made on Golden Bridge became so numerous that it became necessary to acquire new ground, and a few acres at the junction of the roads leading to the villages of Glasnevin and Finglas, on the north-east of the city, were purchased. Toll gates were in existence at this point, and to avoid the payment of the tax on carriages, at once numerous, heavy and vexatious, it was decided, on the advice of O'Connell, to make a new cut between these two roads to the new graveyard. Prospect Avenue was the result of this bold stroke to evade an Act of Parliament.