Conspiracy against the cemetery.

Chapter XI.

The blow successfully dealt against Golden Bridge Cemetery in 1869 was followed a few months later by another aimed at the younger necropolis of Glasnevin. This time it was a more dastardly and subtle stroke - wanting the soldier-like courage of the first, and influenced not a little by private *animus. *The charge made, under the pretence of raising a legal question, was a base and calumnious one, and was not put forward by any person who had a grievance to allege.

On January 21st, 1870, a dismissed officer of the Cemetery, who had had an old quarrel with the Board, summoned to the Police Court representatives of the Cemetery Hoard, to answer his complaint, and shew cause why informations should not be taken against them for having unlawfully, and contrary to public decency, on divers days and times between the 1st day of January, 1866, and the 1st day of January, 1870, disinterred several bodies and human remains interred in the Cemetery of Prospect, Glasnevin.

A pamphlet printed for the use of the Catholic Cemetery Committee, reported the proceedings at the Police Court in extenso.

The Chief Police Magistrate, and his brother Magistrate, Mr. C. J. O’Donel, complained from the Bench that they had been waiting for the prosecution nearly three-quarters of an hour: and it seemed not unlikely that the summons would be dismissed; but Mr. Coffey, Q.C., declared that the gentlemen summoned were most anxious to court a thorough investigation of the extraordinary charges made against them.

Mr. MacDonough, Q.C., in the course of some remarks, referred in complimentary terms to the then governing body of the Cemetery. Mr. MacDonoogh usually spoke in flattering words of solicitors, from whom his large income as counsel was mainly derived; but in this case be made an exception

He (the Solicitor) had a hostility to the Committee; he had a quarrel with them; and this monstrous transaction occurs, that an attorney thinks fit to resolve to work out his revenge, and he employs a discharged servant who, not quite four years before, had been in the service of this body, and who had been dismissed for repeated acts of drunkenness. And it is a very formidable thing for the public, and every man, if an attorney, who has a spite or ill-will against an individual, shall be at liberty to dog that individual - to watch him, to employ his discarded servant, to pay that servant, to engage him solely and entirely for that prosecution which he meditates against the object of his revenge. This highly respectable body, what were they doing? Transacting their duties, their all-important duties; men of the first standing in the city; persons whom we all know and respect; gentlemen discharging, without any advantage to themselves, the onerous duties incumbent on them; men above all suspicion, and against whom now, at the close of this case, we have not had a single tittle of evidence.” Regarding the attorney and the dismissed servant of the Cemetery, who had entered on this prosecution, Counsel advised them “to take a page of the criminal law home, and study it, and I will tell them that it is conspiracy; I will tell them that if two persons conspire, combine, agree, and confederate together to institute a charge, false in its character, they who institute that charge had better look very seriously to themselves.”

It appeared in evidence that the dismissed servant was to get money from the attorney. “He was to abuse his privilege as a grantee. He investigated the books; he was offered every facility; and what was the result? If they could have discerned that these high-minded merchants had been guilty of any malversation of the funds, what a cry we would have! This discarded servant is obliged to tell you that there never was a complaint, while he was employed in the Cemetery, of exhumation, or of misconduct, or anything of that sort.” For four days the magisterial investigation continued; the proceedings were reported in every newspaper; the utmost interest prevailed. During all that time, as was pointed out by Mr. Coffey, Q.C., “not a single human being, out of the whole population of Dublin, interested in the thousands upon thousands of interments which have taken place in the Cemetery, has come forward here to utter one word of complaint, or to make even the suggestion of a charge that the remains of any relative or friend of theirs has ever been disturbed or desecrated.”

All who know the culture of Mr. Murphy, Q.C. (now Mr. Justice Murphy), will be prepared to hear that, in replying to Mr. MacDonough, he brightened so lugubrious a subject by an appeal to poetry:- ” Some persons do not care what becomes of their bodies after their souls have departed, whether they are buried in the depths of the sea, or on the tops of misty mountains. The greatest poet that ever lived in England had placed over his tomb:-

“Blessed be he that spares those stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.”

Now, I say that it is idle for men to come forward here and say that the public or the persons interested in being buried in this ground can have no respect to this. The sole question which you have to ask yourselves here is this whether you can distinctly say that there is no legal question to be tried in this case? If you can arrive at that conclusion, you will, of course, refuse to send forward the case for trial; but if you cannot arrive at such a conclusion, the case should be sent forward.”

The attorney in the cause displayed astuteness. He shut the mouths of all persons officially connected with the Cemetery, from the Committee, its secretary, superintendent, and sexton, to the humblest gravedigger. All those persons who had immediate and abundant sources of knowledge-who knew all about the interments and management of the Cemetery - having been made defendants in the case, could not open their lips in explanation.

The Chief Magistrate, in giving judgment, said:- “This case has taken up a great deal of time, and, in giving our decision on it now, it is not necessary that we should go over the evidence that has been given. It is enough for us to say, that we have come to the conclusion that no case has been made showing that there has been a removal, a disturbance of remains, or a desecration. We have, therefore, no hesitation in dismissing the summons.”

Mr. C.J. O’Donel said:- “in a case of this description, considering the interests involved, the parties who are charged here with this offence, and the nature of the Summons, I do not wish to allow it to close without making a few observations. There is another reason why I wish to speak on the subject, and that is to remove from the public mind and that numerous class of citizens whose relatives must have been buried here, to remove from *their *minds all apprehension or alarm, that the slightest desecration, indignity, or dishonour, has been offered to the remains of their friends buried in Glasnevin. The case set forth in the summons is one of great gravity indeed.” The magistrate here read the words of the summons, in which it was alleged that, for pecuniary or other considerations, bodies were removed out of their graves. His worship then said:-

“There is not one single shadow of evidence to justify such an imputation. The plaintiff had himself the choice of his own language to incriminate the Committee of the Glasnevin Cemetery, and he uses language of the most serious character. He alleges that crimes against public decency have been committed. So far from that having been done, counsel now, in their discretion, withdraw all imputation of that kind, and without limit, and the sole issue between them and the Committee has been reduced to this

• that the Committee have no right to go over unregistered graves, so long as the slightest particle of human remains can be discovered. That being now conceded to be the issue between the parties, I will state the reasons that influence me in coming to the conclusion that nothing has been proved in this case to justify its being sent for trial. It now appears on the evidence of the witnesses for the prosecution, the gravediggers, who are the best possible witnesses, that in or about a period of 15 or 20 years the softer portions of the human body pass away, and that no portion remains except the inorganic portion of the body, of which the bones are formed. The gravediggers stated, that after that period they found nothing but clean bones. Now, admitting that the body, or rather the softer portions, have entirely passed away, and that nothing remains but the cranium and the hones, it is argued, that so long as they remain there the grave must remain untouched, and to touch it or disturb it is an act of desecration. Now, to test the application of this, everybody who knows anything of the structure of bones must be perfectly well aware that the human bones will last for centuries; and it is stated, as a positive fact, that the bones of persons that were swallowed up in the great eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii 2,000 years ago, were found perfect there. According to Mr. Murphy’s argument, it would be a desecration to bury them. If, for an indefinite period, it would become impracticable to bury a second body in a grave where a body had been previously interred, then, for every new burial, fresh ground must be opened. If that were the case there would not be an inch of ground in Glasnevin in which to bury the dead of Dublin in a few years. The conclusion brought fairly and logically from the premises is, that the premises themselves must be unsound. The proposition laid down by Mr. Murphy as applicable to those unregistered graves, is untenable; and the second ground he laid down is equally untenable. It has reference to all people who have got family graves - graves in which they have buried their deceased friends. Now, what is the experience of people every time they visit the graves in which their ancestors are buried? On the death of members of the family, orders are given to the gravediggers to open the graves. Now, is it not within the knowledge of every man who has buried a relation in a grave, that the gravediggers come upon thigh-bones, rib-bones, and skulls, and are not these bones and skulls the remains of his own deceased ancestors or relatives; and if he follows the coffin does he not see those bones piled on the freshly-lifted clay, waiting for the coffin to be put back in its place? Is not that our every-day experience? For my part, it has been my sad duty to witness it on a great many occasions, and on those occasions I saw the bones that were left on the side of the grave put back into the grave before it was refilled. It is untenable to say that it is an act of desecration to put clean bones on the side of a grave. If it is, it is an act of desecration that is committed by members of every family. And I say that if it is not an act of desecration in the head of a family to do this, it is not an act of desecration if it is done by the trustees of this Cemetery. I say it is a monstrous thing that, without a shadow of ground for sustaining this charge, the process of this court should be prostituted for the purpose of private malignity. It is a monstrous thing that citizens of the highest position in this city should have such a charge brought against them, and without the slightest shadow of foundation for the proceeding.

Cemetery Index. Home.