"Zozimus", cholera epidemic, Captain Quill, Thomas Moore.

Chapter VI.

Glasnevin Cemetery is somewhat cosmopolitan. The Italian and the Russian, the Gaul and the citizen of the world, are equally included. Father Aloysius Gentili, a powerful preacher, whose ascetic face was quite a sermon in itself, gave much of his toil to the evangelisation of Ireland. Originally a lawyer in Rome, just as Lacordaire had been in France and Bishop Bramston in England, Gentili entered the Order of Charity, and reaped harvest after harvest of wonderful conversions as the result of the missions to which he gave his great natural gifts and characteristic energy. In the midst of these labours he was called to his reward. The committee granted the vault to which his mortal part is consigned, and he fittingly rests near the grave of John Hogan, to whom, when the young Irish art student arrived in Rome, friendless, the great Italian lawyer extended a cordial helping hand. Gentili was regarded as a saint; and for many years bits of his coffin were whittled away for relics by so-called pious persons, who, in the performance of this theft shewed that they were far from scrupulous.

A Redemptorist priest, Russian by birth, equally energetic as Gentili, but of a different type, and, like him, also an exjurist, was Father Vladimir Petcherine, who, by the hardihood with which he opposed the proselytism of the flocks amongst which his mission lay, was subjected to a prosecution chiefly memorable for one of the grandest of Lord O’Hagan’s bar efforts. The indiscretion for which the priest had been made amenable was that of publicly burning a bible the text of which, he declared, had been corrupted and its sense impaired. The ablest part of O’Hagan’s speech was a vindication of the Catholic Church from the, then, frequently made charge of hostility to the Scriptures. He showed that the Church had ever held that the Sacred Scriptures are the written Word of God, and that to the care of the Church we owe its preservation.

On the 13th November, 1836, Rev. Joachim Villaneuva, Canon of Cuenca, was buried here. A tomb hearing date 18th October, 1849, records that Father Christobel Nogueras, O.D.C., rests beneath.

Those who regard Glasnevin and Golden Bridge as exclusively Irish cemeteries would, indeed, be surprised to find how very many representatives of alien races rest within their walls. The following names, which have been transcribed from the Registers, curiously show its cosmopolitan character, and how Death, like Poverty, levels all races and ranks:- Austenburg, Adami-Caesari, Amdurski (several), Audibert, Alavoine, Alvaine, Andreazzi, Azzopardi, Amos, Arassus (Etienne), Brunetti, Bergami, Brabant, Bondidier, Boisserat, Barnasconi, Bernier, Bellevoine, Brunicardi, Butsch, Blendenburgh, Baldatchi, Bossi, Blizihy, Bronicordi, Brunicardi, Corsani, Cuetio or Cuoti, Cadosch, Carlos, Cluloe, Corri, Debeau, De la Combe, Des Veaux, Di Pina, De la Vega, De Montmorency, Dothwaite, Ferrara, Graeme, Goetz, Goucher, Gussani, Hossbach, Hugo, Hornbenger, Hermann, Jacques, Luchsi, Lanphier, Lavelle, Lubi, Manzie, Memtaith, Monteith, Morgue, Monteira, Moschini, Mons, Mualt, Neuchwander, Nerna, Pattarga, Pedazio, Pedreschi, Pelio, Pessel, Perso, Peverelli, Phero, Picard, Pidoux, Pisani, Plasto, Pellisier, Porri, Pothonier, Pappini, Privert, Parle, Patarga, Proleze, Pruniere, Pasqal, Porteous, Poirotte, Porri, Potokozey, Podesta, Reinhardt, Repetto, Repet, Rolleri, Rossi, [Familiar names historic and otherwise, crop up in strange promiscuousness. The Cromwells are represcnted to the number of four - Cranmer, Boswell, Bannister, Horace. Hogarth, Holcroft, Pelham, Whittington, Ptolomey, Wycherley, Woffington, Widdicomb, Quadmaquin, and Zimmerman catch the eye. There are seven members of the Hempenstall family; four Kebles. Even Bass and Alsop are found, and of the Communion of Israel, Hyam and Moses.] Sacamani, Spiteri, Shugarr, Shieltheis, Sangiovanni, Sabbi, Scervante, Sezenic, Spadaccini, Szepanawski, Sugarr, Staciewitz (Rev. Gregory), Swerer, Tisserandot, Tozier, Tracq, Tritschler, Umbahorn, Vero, Veroni, Verso, Van Mannen, Vivash, Voiles, Valkenburgh, Vaudrant, Volpe, Volatti, Volkner, Voisin, Von Stentz, Vogel, Van Belle, Vanette, Valencie, Valencia, Vagge, Vaude, Velde, Vuille, Weidner, Weckler, Weis, Wosser, Wylier, Ysasi, Zurth, Zipfel, Zumach, Zouch, Zenti.

A visitor standing on the western walk of the Dublin Section might almost imagine himself in Pere La Chaise, especially when the following lines arrest the eye “Oh enfant cheri tu n’as vecu qu’un printemps, comme une ombre tu as passé de cette terre pour t’envoler aux cieux.” [Among other French names observed in this section is that of “Amadée De Morin, Percy Place, 2nd August, 1858.” He is said to have been a refugee from France at the Revolution of 1830. He used to sing the “Marseillaise” with marvellous enthusiasm. His face glowed with excitement; a thrill seemed to pervade every nerve and fibre. He and Sir John Ennis, Bart., married sisters, both daughters of David Henry, Esq., Dublin. Other French names include - Le Sage (37th January, 1846), Desiré Pontet, Prosper Loré, Chantaperdrix, and Gustave Poirotte.]

M.Pruvot, the father of this child, died at Amiens, April 25th, 1883, and his remains were brought over for interment in the same grave. [M. Pruvot left a large bequest to the committee, as well as many other families have done, to maintain and keep his monument in order in perpetuity.] Many of those who pass it join in the prayer: “Priez pour le repos de son ame.” In the same section is seen a handsome, white sarcophagus, which came from Genoa, inscribed: “Rault de Ramsault de Tortonval.” Among other foreign names which catch the eye is: “Charles Ducas, of St. John de Luz, France, nephew of Sir John Bradstreet, Bart., died February 15th, 1859.”

The consignment of remains from remote places is a frequent feature. To this “Home of the Dead” bodies have been borne from the Far West and the Antipodes. Australia sent over the body of Archdeacon Doyle. I also find in the Register: “Rev. Francis Bonaventure Brennan, Lee, Massachusetts, United States, America (body brought over embalmed), died 15th November, 1880.” Coffins from the Indies come. A white, marble slab, wreathed with shamrocks, records that beneath reposes the heart of Surgeon-Major Clarke, who died at Dinapore, India, on 8th May, 1879. Another monument announces that it was raised by Harriet Monica Gibbons, of St. Petersburg, to her father and mother. There is a stone, dated 1885, to Christopher J. Nugent, of the Austrian service, and in the South Section another to Anna Longmore, who died in Austria, and bequeathed to Erin her heart, which duly arrived.

Mr. W. C. Selley published, in the Liverpool *Times, *in August 6, 1881, under the heading, “An Englishman in Dublin” a sketch of Glasnevin Cemetery in which a pleasing feature of the place is brought out. “Of course,” he writes, “there are fine cemeteries in England as there are fine churches, but when I draw your attention to a Protestant cathedral and a Catholic cathedral, the Catholic reader will understand the internal beauty of the latter and the bareness of the former; so it is with a Protestant and a Catholic cemetery. Every grave in this immense resting-place is a study; the monuments and head-stones erected are works of art, and adorned with flowers in vases and wreaths; and the poorer graves show a daily care; there are little glass houses at each end, within which the statue of our Blessed Lord, that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, or other saint, with vases of real flowers at their feet.”

A charming illustration of the floral tribute at Glasnevin is found in Dr. More Madden’s plot, in the South Section. It is to the memory of a favourite child, whose last words of innocence - “Goodbye; I am going to God” - are lovingly put on record.

“Zozimus” - a man not less familiarly known in Dublin than Solomon Eagle was in London at the period chronicled by Defoe, and later by Ainsworth - ceased his perambulations at this time. He has been made the subject of a distinct biography, and a page about him may be admissible here. His real name, as appears from the cemetery records, was Michael Moran. This man boasted that he walked in the footsteps of Homer, and was as well known in Dublin as Nelson’s Pillar. What old citizen does not remember that tall, gaunt, blind man, dressed in a heavy, long-tailed coat and a dinged high hat, armed with a blackthorn stick, secured to his wrist by a thong and finished by an iron ferule? His upturned face displayed the whites of sightless eyes; his boldly-marked facial muscles gave decision to his aspect; his guttural voice - often highly sonorous - his Dublin brogue, rich and mellifluous accompanied by a strange lisp on certain words tempted mimics to go and do likewise. Evening after evening Zozimus made his pilgrimage through the streets, advancing with slow and measured steps, and halting at intervals to collect in his hat the alms of the faithful. His great popular recitation was “The Life, Conversion, and Death of St. Mary of Egypt, who was discovered in the Wilderness in the fifth century by pious Zozimus.” This extraordinary poem, compiled from the “Acta Sanctorum,” was written in the last century by Dr. Coyle, Bishop of Raphoe, and began:-

Th’ imperial throne when Theodosius held,

In Palestine a holy hermit dwelled.

whose shining virtues and extensive fame

The world astonished - Zozimus his name.

Other versions of the poem were given by our Dublin street bard, including -

On Egypt’s plains, where flows the ancient Nile,

Where ibex stalks, and swims the crocodile.

which in due time became broadly parodied. A sham “Zoz” once took his rounds on the same night as the real man, and created quite a sensation on Essex (now Grattan) Bridge, where both met and their sonorous tones mingled, to the confusion of their respective followers. On this occasion the real man called the other an “impostherer,” but the latter gave back the epithet, and touchingly complained of the heartlessness of mocking a poor dark man. Words ran high, and the sham *“Zoz” *said, “Good Christians, just give me a grip of that villian, and I’ll soon let him know who the real ‘impostherer ’ is.’ Then pretending to give his victim a “guzzler,” he pressed some silver into his hand and vanished.

Mozart, on his death-bed, composed his own requiem, which skilled musicians took down from dictation. The Rev. Nicholas O’Farrell, who was summoned to attend Zozimus when dying, stated that he found the room crowded with ballad-singers and Zozimus “dictatin’.” Amongst other directions for his funeral said to have fallen from him were -

I have no coronet to go before me,

Nor Bucephali-us that ever bore me;

But put my hat and stick and gloves together,

That bore for years the very worst of weather,

And rest assured in spirit will be there

Mary of A-gypt and Susannah fair.

And Pharoah’s daughter - with the heavenly blushes -

That took the drowning goslin from the rushes.

I’ll not permit a tomb-stone stuck above me,

Nor effigy; but, boys, if still yees love me,

Build a nate house for all whose fate is hard,

And give a bed to every wandering bard.

Michael Moran had reached the age of only 43, and he died from pulmonary disease, the result of exposure to severe weather. Two portraits of this strange character are extant - one by Henry MacManus, R.H.A., the other by Mr. Horatio Nelson. He was buried on Palm Sunday, the 5th April, 1846.

Another bard, but of a much superior order of mind - Hugh Clinch - followed on June 19th, 1847. He was the son of James Bernard Clinch. A modest volume, called “A Leaf of the Shamrock and other Poems,” published in 1838, bears Hugh Clinch’s name. If Zozimus liked noise and prominence, Clinch sought seclusion to such purpose that his name is overlooked in the otherwise exhaustive “Dictionary of Irish Poets,” by David O’Donoghue. In the *Dublin Penny Journal *will be found a sample of Clinch’s muse, which, for true Irish wit and graphic power, can hardly be beaten. This ballad, “The Wedding of Darby McShawn,” was constantly sung in society by John Cornelius O’Callaghan.

The visit of Jenny Lind to Dublin was a brilliant incident, but it had its shadows, too. Amongst those associated with her at that time was Signor Albani. A flat stone is inscribed, “Signor Lorenzo Albani, who died November 25, 1848.” The remains came from a house in Pitt Street - the same where Balfe was born.

A monument to Lady Charlotte Mahon, who died 23rd January, 1849, is erected by her “grand-daughter, Mary Warden Flood” - a representative of the great orator who, with Grattan, thundered in the Irish Parliament.

Life had lost its zest for “Honest Tom Steele” when O’Connell died. For 20 years he followed, with an enthusiastic devotion, the illustrious “Father of his Country,” as he loved to style him. A graduate of Cambridge; a landed proprietor of Clare; a cultured writer: above all, a Protestant, his adhesion to O’Connell’s standard was rapturously hailed. The “Liberator” bestowed upon him the title of “Head Pacificator,” in recognition of his efforts to put down faction fighting and those local dissensions which weakened the great cause that both had at heart. But he was, in point of fact, a brave man; and having entered the Spanish service in 1823, he won laurels by various warlike operations, including the defence of Cadiz. He had a dash of romance in his nature. Sir Bernard Burke says he preferred the old ruin of Creggan, upon his property, to his comfortable home, and meditated its restoration. Of commanding stature, he loved to wear a shako and a military frock coat, imposingly frogged; and stern resolution was stamped on his bronze face. He was tried with O’Connell in the State prosecutions of 1843, but rising to interrupt Attorney-General Smith, the latter exclaimed, “If you do not be quiet, I will strike out your name from the list of traversers.” The threat told. The gibbet or the stake would not have seemed half so severe a punishment. He went to prison, as he had hoped, with O’Connell; but on appeal to the House of Lords his leader and himself were set free the following year. In 1847 he felt acutely the death of his chief; then came the visitation of famine, which laid waste the land he loved so well. He sought to put an end to the existence which had now become a burden, but happily that fate was averted by the interposition of friends. His financial affairs having fallen into confusion, Lord Brougham and other political opponents generously tendered help, which he declined. At last death came to the rescue, in London, on June 15, 1848. The Cemeteries Committee had his remains removed to Dublin, and after some time placed them in a crypt, close to the coffin of his chief, and also defrayed the expense of a fine monument. “Noble, honest Tom Steele!” exclaimed the *Standard, *in recording his death, “fare thee well. A braver spirit in a gentler heart never left earth - let us humbly hope for that home where the weary find rest.” “He was simply driven to his grave,” exclaimed some one at the funeral. “You would not expect a dead man to walk there,” was Pat Costelloe’s unseemly joke. There was a double fitness as regards the place where the bones of Steele are laid, which, to a man of his romantic temperament, would have been approved. They are close to those of O’Connell, and in grounds which were formerly the favourite resort of a valued ancestor, Sir Richard Steele, who lived at Glasnevin. The latter had been associated with Addison in literary labour, and a part of Glasnevin is still pointed out as “Addison’s Walk.”

[Some of his great thoughts may have risen to Heaven as he paced this walk, or trod the sward now ridged with graves.

“It must be so: …

Else - whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,

This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror

Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul

Back on itself, and startles at destruction?

‘Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;

‘Tis Heaven itself that points out a hereafter

And intimates Eternity to man.” - Addison.]

In April, 1849, the cholera broke out in Dublin, and continued to rage with unremitting violence until late in October, when the ordinarily high death rate of that month came to its relief. Among the victims was William Murphy, popularly regarded as “the millionaire,” and two priests, both of St. Audeon’s, High Street, the Rev. Patrick Crump and the Rev. J. J. Sheppard. A large monument, with the faces of both priests sculptured in marble, is found in the Dublin Section. Lever, when writing “Charles O’Malley,” introduced Maurice Quill into his spirited picture of the Peninsular campaign; but had he known Captain Henry Quill, of the 32nd, he could have made the narrative still more stirring. This distinguished officer died on March 26th, 1849, and the inscription on his tomb records that he “served with his corps to the close of the Peninsular War. At the siege of Burgos his leg was shattered and his left eye carried away by a ball. He received two gunshot wounds in the chest at Waterloo. One of the balls fractured the collar-bone and penetrated the lung, in which it became embedded. The long train of suffering ensuing, and the haemorrhage it induced, ultimately proved fatal.” [A bit of red cloth belonging to his uniform surrounded the bullet, and both remained undisturbed until his death, 34 years after. A portly pamphlet on the naval and military services of the Quill family - of whom fifteen fought for their king and country - has been printed for private circulation.] From a fuller account of his services it appears that he was wounded at Salamanca, and on the 16th June, 1815, took part in the action with Ney’s column at Quatre Bras. Undaunted by the sufferings of personal experience, this gallant veteran gave his two sons to the service. A tablet further records the death, at the age of 20, of Lieut. Thomas P. Quill, who “served in the 80th Regiment during the Burmese war of 1852, and was present at the capture of Martabar, operations before Rangoon, the capture of the Great Pagoda with a storming party; also at the capture of Promé. He was five years in the service and died at Calcutta, August 25, 1853, from the privations he endured in the campaign. The second son, Lieut. Henry Quill, of the 35 Regiment, died September 25th, 1863.

Commissary-General Goldrisk had been associated with the Peninsular veteran, Quill, but with less danger to personal safety. He preceded to the grave the man who was scarred with wounds, and his head-stone is found immediately outside the Chapel Circle.

In midsummer, 1849, another remarkable man was laid to rest at Glasnevin, and the pilgrims to his tomb almost outnumber those who hang their garlands on that of O’Connell. “James Clarence Mangan,” observes an American writer, “was a poetic genius. Like the Persian poet, he lived in au ethereal world, floating amid the stars, where he heard the sublime strains of a golden harp touched by angelic hands. He reclined on the summit of Parnassus, and from its towering heights gazed out on the wond’rous beauty of the divine panorama of nature. What land has the divine artist painted with variegated tints, exquisite shading, sweet and delicate harmonies, revealing the most sublime contrast, as ‘Erin of the Streams?’ Its green fields, rolling meadows, verdant hills, emerald valleys, picturesque lakes, graceful and majestic mountains, glorious bays, crystalline streams, jumping, tumbling, bounding, rippling, murmuring, singing in their serpentine course to swell the rapid currents of the Shannon, the Blackwater, the Slaney, and the Avoca.” Mangan, like De Quincy, was the bond slave of opium, and the trans-Atlantic scribe may not know that under its fatal spell were produced myriads of those poetic prisms which dazzled the far-off land, itself so rich in scenic splendour. The essayist pictures him reclining on the heights of Parnassus; but John Mitchell, who used to see Mangan in Trinity College Library, has left us a sketch, obviously truthful, and as such most welcome to this history. “It was an unearthly figure, in a brown garment - the same garment (to all appearance) which lasted till the day of his death. The blanched hair was totally unkempt; the corpse-like features still as marble; a large book was in his arms, and all his soul was in the book… . Here Mangan laboured mechanically, and dreamed, roosting on a ladder, for certain months, perhaps years, carrying the proceeds in money to his mother’s poor home, storing in his memory the proceeds which were not in money, but in another kind of ore - which might feed the imagination, indeed, but was not available for board and lodging.”

Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P. - himself a poet of mark complains that Mangan’s tomb displays not one word “to indicate the true child of genius and singularly gifted poet.” Some details, therefore, may prove not unacceptable here. It is by his spirited translations from Schiller and Goethe that Mangan will be best remembered. In the exquisite poem with which he makes the Teutonic muse to sing in English, and causes the genius of the Fatherland to pass into our Irish vernacular, he has excelled all contemporaries. But, although evincing a fondness for Continental poesy, he was as true to Erin as he proved himself to be faithful to the memory of a mysterious “Frances,” for whom, in early days, he conceived an unrequited passion, and who, almost until the last scene of all, flits like an angel through his poems. Of purely Irish pieces, “Neill of the Wine-Red Hand,” “Dark Rosaleen,” and the “Lament for Tyrone and Tyrconnell” are among the best. On June 21st, 1849, at the age of 46, he took ill in a back street of Dublin and was borne to the Meath Hospital, where he breathed his last. Hercules Ellis, an ardent admirer of the poor poet, when he heard of Mangan’s death, called at the hospital, and has penned a painful description of the man who had so often given him delight, stretched stiff, stark, and naked on a deal table; but he could hardly have appeared more corpse-like than Mitchell’s picture of him when engaged at toil. Another visitor came to the hospital, moved by mingled emotions-Sir F. W. Burton, subsequently keeper of the National Gallery, London, who has left us a picture of the poet as he lay dead.

Mangan’s touching lines, “Twenty Golden Years Ago,” foreshadowed all that followed -

“Tic-tic, tic-tic ; not a sound save Time’s

And the wind-gust as it drives the rain -

Tortured torturer of reluctant rhymes

Go to bed and rest thy aching brain.

Sleep - no more the dupe of hopes and schemes,

Soon thou sleepest where the thistles blow,

Curious anti-climax to thy dreams

Twenty golden years ago.

Mangan, although most given to the German poets, was very familiar with those of France, Spain, and Italy, and he loved to recite Dante’s lines, in which Ugolino was done to death in the Tower of Famine - possibly in grim foreboding of a fate not widely different from his own. Like Lamb, he would sometimes seek to ease the tired brain by playing upon words, and once, when congratulated on a poem, which, however, had been translated from Hafiz, a Persian poet, he replied that it was only *half his. *[The late Denis Florence MacCarthy, to W. J. F., June, 1864.]

I have said that the pilgrims to his shrine sometimes outnumber those who kneel in the O’Connell crypt. “And be it told to the honour of this exceptionally gifted man,” writes Father C. P. Meehan, “at whose grave some modern Pharisees have cast shards and flints of obloquy, that he never in all his life bodied forth on paper a single thought or suggestion that could flutter modesty even for an instant. Nay more, his conversation, meekness, and unpretentiousness would not unbeseem a Carthusian cloister; and be his errors of head what they may have been, it must be said that he never lost faith in God or hope in the Divine mercy. To the desponding and broken of heart, what preacher has ever spoken balmier consolation than we find in this exquisite verbal melody?-

“But if drooping turn thy gaze

Where the gilded cloud is gleaming,

Let thy heart divinely dreaming

Drink of Hope’s Aurora rays, -

See where Heaven its arch uprears,

Shine the ever golden portals,

With the blest inscription “MORTALS,

You shall meet in happier spheres.”

Charles Aylmer, the scion of an ancient race in Kildare, was one of four other Irishmen who, in 1814, assisted at Rome at the formal restoration of the Society of Jesus, after its suppression in 1773 by Clement XIV. He returned to Ireland and took an active part in establishing Clongowes College, which adjoined his ancestral home. When the See of Kildare became vacant he was recommended, in conjunction with the famous J. K. L., for its mitre. His writings are - “A Life of St. Aloysius,” “The Exercises of Aloysius,” “Bona Mors,” “Three Hours Agony,” “The Novena of St. Francis,” “A Spiritual Retreat,” and others. He was called to his reward on the 4th July, 1849.

Thomas J. Lee, M.D., Cavendish Row, represented both Archbishop Carpenter and Archbishop Troy who, in trying times, had ruled the Archdiocese of Dublin. In September, 1849, his funeral entered Glasnevin Cemetery. He was the father of the late Dean Lee, P.P., V.G., of Bray, and of Canon Lee, Pastor of Haddington Road Church. An inscription on the side panel of his monument depicts a state of things hard to realise at this day. It was introduced, I find, by the special instructions of Dean Lee: “This family, driven by religious persecution from their hereditary burial-place, in the churchyard of St. Michan, Dublin have sought here a place of rest.”

John Breen, M.D., F.K.Q.C.P. - the butt of Dr. Brennan’s relentless onslaughts in the Milesian Magazine - was buried June 12, **1850. He had been educated for the Church, and never relinquished the gentleness of manner peculiar to priests of penal days. “Come, Creep-mouse Breeny O!” occurs in one of the squibs which notices this characteristic.

On December 14, 1850, James Charles Bacon, a man of much philanthropy, was buried here. A carving in bas-relief depicts him caressing orphan children. A man of less ascetic type was James Scott Molloy, a well-known solicitor, buried at the same time. “The Law Scrutiny; or Attorney’s Guide,” a satire, by William Norcott, was published in 1807. Addressing a father of the craft, he says:-

“And doubtless will your vacant hours employ

T’ instruct your simple friend, J- S- M-.”

Molloy filled the public post of Official Assignee in the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors.

Cornelius MacLoughlin, an old member of the society of United Irishmen, and a staunch ally of O’Connell in successive political struggles, also joined the majority this year. Readers who care to study the exciting period of 1798 should see Dr. Madden’s “United Irishmen” (Vol. II., p. 50), where a dramatic incident, which took place at the house of Con MacLoughlin, is described. He served for many years on the Board of the Cemetery. Having reached the patriarchal age of 90, he died at Fitzwilliam Place, May 28th, 1851.

Students of the stormy period of 1798 and 1803 will remember the case of Anne Develin, who was at first vainly bribed and afterwards cruelly tortured in the hope of persuading her to turn informer. Dr. Madden regarded her as a heroine, and in his “Lives and Times of the United Irishmen” devotes much space to her history and its vicissitudes. “My next inquiry,” he writes, “was after her remains. Thanks to the admirable mode of burial registration in the Cemetery of Glasnevin, and the facilities afforded me by the secretary of the committee, the spot was speedily ascertained - in that portion of the Cemetery set apart for pauper burials. In a few days the assistance of some friends enabled me to have her remains removed to that part of the Cemetery which is in most request - very near the spot where the remains of O’Connell are deposited. The usual fees paid for such removals were remitted on this occasion, and permission was granted to have a monument erected over the grave not unworthy of the place or the person.”

Over the inscription the most suitable of all emblems, the cross, is sculptured, and underneath there is a device that is thought an appropriate one on the tombstone over the grave of the faithful servant of Robert Emmet - an Irish wolf-dog, crouching on a bank of shamrocks, with an earnest look and watchful expression. Anne Develin died 18th September, 1851.

A less lowly tomb is one in Curran’s Square erected by Robert Netterville, in November, 1851, to Annabelle, daughter of Henry Mayne and grand-niece of General Sir Robert Rollo Gillespie, Bart.

Five Theobald Butlers figure in Irish history, though Carte thinks it not unlikely that the third and fourth may be identical. But, however hazy the record of their services may have become, there is no doubt whatever as to those of their descendant, Major Theobald Butler, who died 26th December, 1851, aged 66 years. The following inscription is found on his headstone alongside the Oak Walk of the Dublin Section:

“Having entered the British army at an early age, he served under Sir John Moore, and subsequently under His Grace the Duke of Wellington, through the Peninsular Wars, for which he received medal and seven clasps. He also received a second medal for being present at the memorable battle of Waterloo, in 1815.”

Major Theobald Butler was present at Corunna when a cannon ball struck Sir John Moore, and helped to lay his chief in the hurriedly-prepared grave, where he lay “like a warrior taking his rest.”

Some of the brightest and warmest lays in the “spirit of the Nation,” as also in Sir Gavan Duffy’s “Ballad Poetry of Ireland,” bear the signature of “J. de Jean.”

He had previously published, in 1845, “Poems for the People,” and in 1851 a volume of fugitive pieces; he also wrote under the signature of “J. Robertson,” “Maria,” “L,” “G,” and “F,” as we learn from David O’Donoghue, who has been at much pains to trace the effusions of his muse. *“Jungamus Dexteras” *was his motto quite as much as *“Erin go Bragh.” *De Jean nobly sought to cement the bonds of brotherhood between the hitherto hostile forces of Orange and Green. A party song had been composed in ‘98, called “The Boyne Water,” to the tune of which red blood had been shed between the colours just named. “On July the Twelfth, 1843,’ when O’Connell was organising what he called a “bloodless revolution,” De Jean essayed to heal old wounds by a new balm:-

Come - pledge again thy heart and hand -

One grasp that ne’er shall sever;

Our watchword be - “Our native land” -

Our motto - “Love for ever.”

And let the Orange lily be

*Thy *badge, my patriot brother -

The everlasting Green for me;

And we for one another.

The fire of De Jean’s genius was quenched too soon. He wrote not for fame. His real name, as appears from the records of the cemetery, was “John Frazer, age, 48 years; residence, Jervis Street; date of burial, March 23, 1852.”** **He left a daughter, who became the wife of Thomas Clarke Luby, T.C.D., editor of the *Irish People, *and author of the “Life and Times of Daniel O’Connell.” Frazer had also been a journalist, and conducted the *Advocate, *a Dublin print. He died poor. His grave was not secured “in perpetuity,” and a person named Eliza Daly seems to have been buried in it. No stone marks Frazer’s grave; but it is not too late to discharge this small debt to a highly interesting memory.

Appended to the record of the burial, on 11th September, 1852, of “Maria Kirwan, aged 28, of 6 Merrion Street, Upper,” is a note in the autograph of Mathias O’Kelly, then secretary to the Cemetery, *i.e., *“murdered by her husband at Ireland’s Eye”! The grave was bought by William Burke Kirwan, “miniature painter,” who for nearly two months after the murder seems not to have been suspected of foul play. The lonely and picturesque isle on which her death occurred is one mile from the Hill of Howth, and bears traces of the ruined Abbey of St. Nessan, in which was once preserved the Book of the Four Gospels, known as the “Garland of Howth.” While his wife was bathing, Kirwan claimed to have been making sketches of the scenery. Piteous screams had been heard at Howth, and in a fissure between two rocks the body of Maria Kirwan was found. Isaac Butt defended Kirwan, but defended him badly, as he himself often confessed. He defied the prosecuting counsel - the subsequent Mr. Justice Hayes - to show how a murder could have been committed. Hayes drew so realistic a picture of the dreadful deed that a shudder shook the court. Kirwan was found guilty on December 10, 1852, and Judge Crampton, in sentencing him to be hanged, said-”The wife whom you vowed to cherish you destroyed while you spared the courtesan.” Some English newspapers took up his case and hysterically sought to save him. James Knight Boswell wrote a pamphlet with the same design. One man, could have hanged him - Dr. Geoghegan, F.R.C.S.I., who made a post morte; examination and found that a sword-cane or similar instrument had been driven through her body. Strange to say, Dr. Geoghegan was not called on the trial. Meanwhile influential friends were not idle. Kirwan had a considerable medical knowledge, having been constantly employed by the profession in painting studies from anatomical specimens. Sir Philip Crampton persuaded Judge Crampton, who tried the case, that the medical evidence was insufficient.

A reprieve was obtained, and subsequently a commutation to penal servitude for life. He was sent to Bermuda, where he met Smith O’Brien, John Mitchell, Meagher, and MacManus. Reaction of feeling soon set in against him. It was said that his mother-in-law and others had mysteriously disappeared, and in a search for new evidence the garden of his late residence was ripped up. From Bermuda he was transferred to Spike Island, near Cork. At length, after 27 years detention, he was released on condition of expatriating himself to America. He received from the governor £70, which had remained to his credit, and repaired to Queenstown; but the ship which should have called at that port failed to do so.

The man who, it was thought, would spring from his prison like a liberated rat from its trap, returned to Spike Island begging re-admission to his cell, in which he remained until new arrangements were made. “Love is stronger than death,” saith Solomon; “and jealousy more cruel than the grave.” On arriving in New York” he discovered the woman with whom he had lived nearly thirty years before. She soon wrote, in appealing terms, to the prison authorities requesting some assistance for Kirwan; but the claim it was impossible to recognise.

Years rolled on, and one day an old man hired a boat to Ireland’s Eye, and spent some hours testing how far the human voice was capable of making itself heard at the mainland. Maria Kirwan’s grave-unmarked by a stone-is numbered “X D 39,” and will be found near the Oak Walk of the Dublin Section. No other interment has been made in the grave. The horrible story produced a profound sensation, and for twenty years Kirwan’s fine house in Merrion Street remained without a tenant. [This case is included in the list of murders given in Hayden’s “Dictionary of Dates”]

A man whose death came at this time was Joseph Denis Mullen, Governor of the Four Courts Marshalsea. His name surmounts a vault in the Old Circle, with the date of demise - 1852. He had been a prominent member of the Catholic Association, and gave efficient aid to O’Connell in establishing the Catholic Cemeteries. The assistance of Mr. Mullen proved very valuable to O’Connell in his election for Dublin. How old and staunch was Mullen’s friendship is shown by “Anacreon in Dublin,” published at London in 1814, and known to have been written by Edmund Lenthal Swift. Mullen was a native of Francis Street, in the “Liberty.”

“Haste thee now, ingenious Mullen,

Though the Liberty is dull in

Manufacture, trade, or pay,

Thou must form a Cup to-day.

Though our need should make us thrifty,

We will spend our guineas fifty,

And contribute, every man,

To the famous Lawyer Dan.”

The “Cup” presented by the manufacturers of the Liberty is in possession of O’Connell’s family. [Several letters addressed to Mullen appear in the “Private Correspondence of O’Connell”; see also the “Life of Lord Melbourne,” by Torrens; and the “Life and Times of Lord Cloncurry.”]

“My father regarded ‘Moore’s Irish Melodies’ as a most valuable aid in his effort to achieve Catholic Emancipation,” writes the son of O’Connell. But Moore was also “the poet of all circles - the idol of his own,” to quote Byron’s words. When, in 1850, news of Moore’s failing health reached Ireland, the Cemeteries Committee put upon their minutes that, “in the event of his demise, they were prepared to expend a sum of £500 for expenses attendant on the transfer of his remains to Ireland, and on his funeral.” During two years his once bright mind remained a gloomy blank; at last, in 1852, news of his death came. A letter was addressed to Mrs. Moore apprising her of the wish so generally felt that he should rest in that “Dear Isle of his own,” of which he had so sweetly sung. But, as all who read his “Journals” know, “Bessie” was a woman of most retiring habits, and preferred that he should sleep near the rural spot where he died. Instead, therefore, of a palatial pile raised to his memory at Glasnevin -

A green grave rises

On thy sward - Devizes.

[Denis Florence M’Carthy.]

Some months previously, *i.e, *on May 25th, 1851, Richard Lalor Shiel, the eloquent champion of civil and religious liberty at a time when penal chains clanked around him, died British Minister at Florence. The Cemeteries Committee suggested that his remains might fittingly rest near those of O’Connell; but Mrs. Shiel wished that his grave might be where she could in death sleep beside him.

In 1853 the bloodhounds which had so long guarded Glasnevin Cemetery bayed no more. How the Committee came to relinquish the services of those vigilant and faithful creatures arose in this way. An annual stipend had been paid to a physician to attend, in case of illness, the Cemetery staff. Dr. Kirwan, the well-known City Coroner, was the last to fill this post. One night, when hurrying through the Cemetery to visit Mr. Walker, the sexton, Dr. Kirwan was suddenly attacked by the bloodhounds. Their mission from the first had been one of hostility to such medical men as dared to invade the Cemetery at night; and, with canine instinct, they are said to have scented on this occasion a son of Galen. Dr. Kirwan, placing his back against a tombstone, sought to keep the bloodhounds at bay, and for some minutes the City Coroner was in imminent risk of furnishing in his own person a sensational case for inquest on the morrow. At last his lusty cries for help were heard above the canine chorus. Help arrived, and thus Dr. Kirwan narrowly escaped the fate of Actaeon. He was a cultured man - the attached friend of Archbishop Murray, whose house he occupied after the death of that prelate. The nocturnal incident naturally caused a shock. [Dr. Kirwan was attacked near the Old Chapel Circle, and close to the spot where his own tomb now stands. It records that his death took place 3rd February, 1868.] As a result the bloodhounds were banished. But, in point of fact, the outrages which they had been got to prevent had long previously ceased, thanks to the operation of the Anatomy Act.

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