Historic cemetery is a national disgrace

WE are supposed to be a supportive and caring nation. That’s just humbug.

Pay a visit to the historic Goldenbridge Cemetery on St Vincent Street, Inchicore, Dublin, to see how we have neglected our dead.

This two-acre cemetery was the first Catholic burial place established by Daniel O’Connell after Catholic Emancipation. It opened in 1829.

Buried there are some famous people, mostly Dubliners, including WT Cosgrave, the first president of the Free State government, a veteran of the Easter Rising and a long-time democratic Dublin politician.

He was buried at Goldenbridge as late as 1965.

The cemetery was vandalised by drug-takers and others some years ago and was closed as a result.

But you would imagine that whoever is responsible for its care would at least cut the grass, trim the trees and maybe open the grounds to the public at least one day a year when mass could be celebrated at the old mass rock, which dates back to the penal days, in the centre of the graveyard.

On second thoughts, Goldenbridge cemetery should be designated a national monument. Instead it is a national disgrace.

Michael O’Carroll

81 Kerrymount Rise

Foxrock

Dublin 18