Lord Wellesley insulted by Orangemen. Penal Days..

Chapter II.

On 17th May, 1824, O’Connell censured, in characteristically caustic terms, the conduct of Archbishop Magee with respect to Catholic burials. He referred to a transaction which took place in 1818, at Cork, of which diocese Dr. Magee was then Dean; noticed some recent cases of hardship as regards burials in Derry and Limerick, and referred to the example of the Rev. Sir Richard Lees, as proofs of the length to which blind prejudice will lead otherwise genial men. On the Bishop of Limerick, Dr. Jebb, he pronounced a high eulogium.

Meanwhile, the Viceroy, Lord Wellesley, wrote a strong letter to the English Cabinet, urging that an Act for the easement of burials should be passed. Mr. Plunket, Mr. Brougham, Sir John Newport, Mr. Abercrombie, afterwards Speaker, spoke favourably to the point : while O’Connell - watchful of the interests of Nonconformists - urged their claims not less zealously than his own. Sir John Newport, of Waterford, had been a true friend to Ireland, but he lived to see these services forgotten. Lord Monteagle, in 1855, said: “In visiting Waterford the other day, I was unable to find even a tablet bearing the honoured name of Newport.” Died 1843, aetat 87.

The Bill was passed; but it proved illusory in correcting the evil, or, at least, the hardship, which Dr. Blake had deplored. On turning over the dusty files of the newspapers of that day, this fact becomes clear. After the lapse of three years, O’Connell is found stating, at the Catholic Association, on Saturday, October the 27th, 1827: “There was no statute law respecting burials previous to that so ludicrously called the ‘Easement of Burials Bill.’ Before, as it stood at common law, there existed no restriction whatever upon the right of interment - there was no obstruction whatever to any prayers pronounced by any person over the deceased at the place of interment, and, above all, the Catholic clergy were not impeded in the performance of that sacred duty by the common law, for the Catholic religion, as we all know once formed a part and parcel of the common law of the land. There existed, then, no statute law on the subject till the passing of the Easement of Burials Bill. I make the assertion advisedly and emphatically. At the time when that Bill was in its progress through Parliament, I published a letter in the papers in which I challenged any lawyer to prove the existence of any previous law which destroyed the right enjoyed by the Catholic clergy, at common law, to officiate over the dead at the place of interment. That challenge was published in the Irish and English papers, and to this day it has never been answered - for this simple reason, that no previous law ever existed on the subject. The Easement of Burials Bill, as it is facetiously denominated, originated with Lord Plunket. I consider Lord Plunket as one of the firmest and strongest supporters of the Established Church. By that Bill he conferred upon the Established clergy great and additional powers, and he increased their revenues to an enormous amount by the late Vestry Bill. In my conscience, then, I believe Lord Plunket to be the greatest support of the Established Church in this country. If I were to select a man whom, in an emphatic and particular manner, I should denominate as the bulwark of the Irish Church Establishment, there is no name I would put above that of Lord Plunket.”

But it must be remembered that Lord Plunket, in speeches few and famous, favoured Catholic Emancipation, and the remainder of O’Connell’s speech dealt with him in a different tone. This sequel is sufficiently curious to claim permanent record at our hands, and the reader will find it in the Appendix. Those who knew the close ties by which Plunket was attached to Archbishop Magee could not well expect him to take a course hostile to the policy of that eminent prelate. They had been born under the same roof in Enniskillen, for a time occupied the same cradle, were nurtured from the same breast, studied in the same school; and afterwards, when each had attained the head of his respective profession, both lived in Stephen’s Green, Dublin, in houses similarly situated to that in which born - under one roof - but divided by a party wall. [See “Life of Archbishop Magee,” prefixed to “sermons on The Atonement,” by Very Rev. Arthur Kenny, Dean of Achonry; see also Will’s “Illustrious Irishmen,” Vol. 4., p. 373.]

A reform of the hardships attendant on burial formed but a small part of the work which O’Connell mapped out for the Catholic Association, and this received a check by the threatened suppression of that body, as foreshadowed by some ominous words in the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament in 1825. But, although matters of more pressing import received prominent attention from the Association, the work in relation to burial was not relinquished. All agreed that a Catholic cemetery had become a necessity. The ancient Romans wished that their tombs might rise near some great artery of human activity, and the Romans of a later time were much of the same mind. A committee which had been appointed to secure a site near the outskirts of Dublin held periodic sittings but for some time little came of their labour. Long after Catholics had become legally eligible to acquire landed property in fee, an indisposition was shown to accept any proposal emanating from that source. Several overtures for land had been made and failed, until at last, at the instance of Mathias O’Kelly, a kindly Protestant took the matter in hand. The genial summer of 1828 bore fruit, in more ways than one, for the solace of those who had suffered long. A tract of land near Kilmainham, over-looking the Phoenix Park, close to the Richmond Barracks, in the suburbs of Dublin, and situated on a rising ground, near the south side of the Liffey, was secured. At the meeting of the Catholic Association on the 7th of June, 1828, a report was brought up and, on the motion of Patrick Costello, adopted, while Daniel O’Connell took the modest part of seconding it.

”In rendering an account of the duties imposed on them,” it goes on to say, “your committee beg to inform the Association that they have completed their labours by nominating His Grace the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin; the Very Rev. Dr. Coleman, V.G. and P.P.; the Very Rev. Dean Lube, P.P.; Daniel O’Connell, Nicholas Mahon, and Christopher Fitzsimon, Esqrs., to be trustees for the burial-grounds, and have nominated Thomas Dwyer, John Reynolds, Michael Walsh, D. J. J. Magee, John Redmond, Marcus Hickey, Kean South, Lawrence Finn, M. J. O’Kelly, Michael Spratt, James Moran, Timothy O’Brien, and John Brown, Esqrs., as a permanent committee to conduct the affairs of the burial-grounds, with power to fill up any vacancies that may occur in their body, and also to make such regulations as they may deem most useful for the public interest. They have also appointed the Rev. F. J. L’Estrange - a member of the Community of St. Teresa, Clarendon Street - secretary to the committee … Your committee request that the Association will enable the acting committee to carry into effect this truly national work by granting, as a loan, a sum of £600, to pay the purchase-money of the above-named ground, for which they have agreed and, also, that the Finance Committee may be empowered to lend such other sums as may be necessary for the outfit of said burial-ground.”

The money was paid, and thus, by the acquisition of what is known as “Golden Bridge Cemetery,” a great principle was at last vindicated and a long-desired purpose attained, namely, to procure a burial-ground wherein Catholics might have an opportunity of having the funeral rites of their Church duly solemnized without fear of disturbance, and where all religious denominations were free to inter their dead, and to perform whatever religious ceremonies they wished.

The Catholics of Dublin, and even some Dissenters, manifested an immediate sense of relief, and eagerly hailed the change. An old priest, in looking back on past times, used to say that, when attending funerals in Protestants churchyards, he could never forget the agonized feelings he experienced lest some cruel rebuff might suddenly come to silence the voice of prayer and scare him away.

Somebody said that “If the Ark had been built be a committee, it would not have been finished yet.” But better can be told in this case. The works necessary for enclosing and laying out the new ground progressed. By the records of July, 1829, it appears that a further sum of £230 was received from the Catholic Association, and in August, the Rev. George Canavan, who had taken much interest in the good work, offered to advance funds for carrying to completion the walled enclosure and building a mortuary chapel, repayment to be made to him out of the fees. The latter structure, reached by a flight of granite steps and supported by pillars, somewhat resembles a classic temple. Beneath it, in a darkened chamber, there remained at night trusty sentinels, attended by bloodhounds, whose duty it was to preserve the dead from sacrilegious disturbance, which, for anatomical purposes had long been connived at elsewhere.

Archbishop Murray delegated Father Canavan to bless the new ground at Golden Bridge, but this ceremony did not take place until the 15th October, 1829 - six months after the Act of Catholic Emancipation had passed - and the first burial within the enclosure was that of Father Whelan, who in penal days had had the pastoral charge of Dolphin’s Barn, the nearest chapel to Golden Bridge. His remains had been interred beneath the earthen floor of that chapel, and their exhumation awakened memories of the past.

A number of other interments took place on the same day. Many funerals had been postponed until the gate of Golden Bridge was thrown open. Over it was inscribed the letters “D. O. M.” - “Deo Optimo Maximo.” Thenceforward funeral processions marched under the loop-holed ramparts of Richmond Barracks. Long after, as will be shewn, war was proclaimed against the cemetery by its military neighbours.

The example set by Dublin was soon followed in the South. The people of Munster found relief in the sanctuary of St. Finbar. Father Theobald Mathew, who afterwards became famous as the Apostle of Temperance, obtained for the use of a cemetery the ornamental grounds which had been the Botanic Gardens of the Royal Cork Institution, and one of its most striking tombs at this day is that of the founder.

Meanwhile, the new cemetery at Golden Bridge was fast becoming a reality. A Deed of Trust, dated March 29th, 1830, was prepared constituting the committee a body united to regulate the enterprise. Arrangements were made as to the mode of carrying out interments, also for the audit of accounts; and with respect to all profits arising, it was arranged that, subject first to the repayment of the sums advanced, that they should be applied to the education of the people. The great scheme of national education had not as yet been introduced by Mr. Stanley, and early in the year 1831, a sum of £100 was allocated to the completion of the schools of the Christian Brothers in North Richmond Street, popularly known as “O’Connell’s Schools.”

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