Insights
A skull and an hourglass on an early modern tomb slab can communicate a surprisingly complex meditation on mortality. Their compact forms turn carved stone…
On a low green stretch of the Sligo coast, a small walled cemetery preserves one of Ireland’s most poignant links to the Spanish Armada of 1588. The Carrowmore…
In the grounds of Muckross Abbey, beside the lakes and wooded slopes of Killarney National Park, visitors can find the grave associated with Eoghan Rua Ó…
At St James Cemetery in Liverpool, one memorial rewards close reading. Its principal inscription contains seven words: “He died as he lived, a gentleman.” The…
County Clare’s churchyards, cemeteries and small burial plots preserve a history of settlement, belief and social change. Their memorials range from elaborate…
Glasnevin Cemetery is often approached through the lives of Ireland’s presidents, patriots, writers and revolutionaries. Yet some of its most revealing…
Two hands meeting at the centre of a gravestone can look like a simple handshake. On Irish marriage memorials, however, the gesture carries a dense history of…
On the southern edge of Clew Bay, County Mayo, the name Gráinne O’Malley still carries the force of legend. Known in English as Grace O’Malley or Granuaile,…
At the southern edge of Dublin, Mount Jerome Cemetery presents history through more than names and dates. Its monuments, chapel, boundary walls and mature…
The Aran Islands—Inis Mór, Inis Meáin and Inis Oírr—hold a rich cultural record of death, mourning and burial. Their “corpse roads” were routes associated with…