Grangegorman Military Cemetery () is a British military cemetery in

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

, located on Blackhorse Avenue, parallel to the Navan Road and beside the

Phoenix Park The Phoenix Park ( ga, Páirc an Fhionnuisce) is a large urban park in Dublin, Ireland, lying west of the city centre, north of the River Liffey. Its perimeter wall encloses of recreational space. It includes large areas of grassland and tre ...

The Cemetery

Battalion badges are marked on the headstones along with the name of the person buried, their rank and the date of their death, while a very few have personal inscriptions. The

Royal Dublin Fusiliers The Royal Dublin Fusiliers was an Irish infantry Regiment of the British Army created in 1881, one of eight Irish regiments raised and garrisoned in Ireland, with its home depot in Naas. The Regiment was created by the amalgamation of two Brit ...

have a large number of their members and their closest relatives buried in the graveyard. Mature trees and well-maintained lawns create a reflective atmosphere. Situated beside the

, the cemetery's current comparative anonymity has more to do with those buried there than with its location. It was forgotten after independence in a country forged from a bitter conflict with Great Britain, as many viewed Irishmen who had fought in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

as traitors. Some of the graves were re-located to this site at a later date (nine from King George V Hospital grounds, two from

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

grounds, three from

Portobello Portobello, Porto Bello, Porto Belo, Portabello, or Portabella may refer to: Places Brazil * Porto Belo Ireland * Portobello, Dublin * Cathal Brugha Barracks, Dublin formerly ''Portobello Barracks'' New Zealand * Portobello, New Zealand, on Ot ...

(Barracks) Cemetery, two from Drogheda (Little Calvary) Cemetery and one from Oranmore Old Graveyard). The ''Irish Times'' posited upon "one of the 1916 Rising's unresolved mysteries. Why did the bodies of five British officers lie, apparently unclaimed and forgotten, in waste ground in central Dublin for 46 years?" Their bodies were then discovered and interred in Grangegorman. The

Irish National War Memorial Gardens The Irish National War Memorial Gardens ( ga, Gairdíní Náisiúnta Cuimhneacháin Cogaidh na hÉireann) is an Irish war memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin, dedicated "to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great ...

dedicated to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the "Great War, 1914–1918" is approximately 1 mile away in Islandbridge at the other side of

. A Screen Wall Memorial of a simple design standing nearly two metres high and fifteen metres long has been built of Irish limestone to commemorate the names of those war casualties whose graves lie elsewhere in Ireland and can no longer be maintained. Arranged before this memorial are the headstones of the war dead buried in Cork Military Cemetery but now commemorated here. A Turkish Hazel was planted in the cemetery in 2005 by the ambassadors of Turkey, New Zealand and Australia to Ireland to mark the 90th Anniversary of the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915. The cemetery is currently managed by the

Office of Public Works The Office of Public Works (OPW) ( ga, Oifig na nOibreacha Poiblí) (legally the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland) is a major Irish Government agency, which manages most of the Irish State's property portfolio, including hundreds of o ...

Commonwealth War Graves Commission The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations m ...

standards and is the largest military cemetery in Ireland.

History

The cemetery was opened in 1876 to serve as a graveyard for the soldiers of what was then Marlborough Barracks (

McKee Barracks McKee Barracks () is a military installation situated on Blackhorse Avenue near Phoenix Park in Cabra, Dublin, Ireland. History Known first as Grangegorman Barracks, taking its name from the historical civil parish in which it was situated, this ...

) and their families. Since the

did not repatriate soldiers killed overseas until recently it contains the remains of soldiers from across the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

who died naturally or were killed in action in Ireland. It also contains the remains of some killed in the

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

. After 1923 only servicemen and their next of kin could be buried there.

World War I

World War One casualties are throughout the graveyard, and two of them are "known only to God" i.e. unidentified. The Australian folk memory of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

can be seen in the annual Anzac Day commemoration at the cemetery. The cemetery holds the remains of

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

recipient Martin Doyle (1849–1940). The graves reveal some details about those interred there. Perhaps the best example is the row of burials of soldiers all killed on 10 October 1918. On that day a

mail boat Mail boats or postal boats are a boat or ship used for the delivery of mail and sometimes transportation of goods, people and vehicles in communities where bodies of water commonly separate or separated settlements, towns or cities often where b ...

, the

RMS Leinster RMS ''Leinster'' was an Irish ship operated by the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. She served as the Kingstown-Holyhead mailboat until she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine , which was under the command of Oberleutnant zur ...

, was torpedoed as it left Dublin and many soldiers on board were killed.

Easter Rising

The graves of those who were killed between April 24 and the first week of May include those of some of the 118 soldiers who were killed in the course of the 1916 rising. There are numerous graves of

Sherwood Foresters The Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for just under 90 years, from 1881 to 1970. In 1970, the regiment was amalgamated with the Worcestershire Regiment to ...

and

South Staffordshire Regiment The South Staffordshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence for only 68 years. The regiment was created in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 38th (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot an ...

personnel who suffered serious casualties when they attempted to cross Mount Street Bridge on the Grand Canal. Also included are Algernon Lucas and Basil Henry Worsley Worswick, subalterns of the

King Edward's Horse King Edward's Horse (The King's Overseas Dominions Regiment) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army, formed in 1901, which saw service in the First World War. Early history The regiment was originally formed as part of the Imperial Yeomanry ...

, both (alongside two civilians) arrested and shot by their own side (pickets of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers), who mistakenly thought they were intruders aiding rebels in the

Guinness brewery St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is ...

. According to the ''Irish Times'', "Families came to Dublin Castle in May 1916 to reclaim the bodies and funerals were arranged. Bodies which were not claimed were given military funerals and reinterred in the British military cemetery at Blackhorse Avenue, Grangegorman."

Later Conflicts

The last major conflict in the 26 counties involving the British Army was the Irish War of Independence. There are graves of soldiers killed between 1919 and 1921. There are also the graves of 12 British military personnel (one of whom is an unidentified

airman An airman is a member of an air force or air arm of a nation's armed forces. In certain air forces, it can also refer to a specific enlisted rank. An airman can also be referred as a soldier in other definitions. In civilian aviation usage, t ...

) who died in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The last burial took place in 1999.

Further information

Burial Records: (acknowledged as not 100% complete) * Surnames A–

* Surnames G–

* Surnames M–

* Surnames S–

References

Sources

* Thomas P. Dooley: ''Irishmen or English Soldiers?: the Times of a Southern Catholic Irish Man (1876-1916)'', Liverpool Press (1995), . * Myles Dungan: ''They Shall not Grow Old: Irish Soldiers in the Great War'', Four Courts Press (1997), . * Keith Jeffery: ''Ireland and the Great War'', Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge (2000), . * Bryan Cooper (1918): ''The 10th (Irish) Division in Gallipoli'', Irish Academic Press (1993), (2003). . * Terence Denman: ''Ireland's unknown Soldiers: the 16th (Irish) Division in the Great War'', Irish Academic Press (1992), (2003) . * Desmond & Jean Bowen: ''Heroic Option: The Irish in the British Army'', Pen & Sword Books (2005), . * Steven Moore: ''The Irish on the Somme'' (2005), . * Thomas Bartlett & Keith Jeffery: ''A Military History of Ireland'', Cambridge University Press (1996) (2006), * David Murphy: ''Irish Regiments in the World Wars'', OSprey Publishing (2007), * David Murphy: ''The Irish Brigades, 1685–2006, A gazetteer of Irish Military Service past and present'', Four Courts Press (2007)
The Military Heritage of Ireland Trust. * Stephen Walker: ''Forgotten Soldiers; The Irishmen shot at dawn'' Gill & Nacmillan (2007),