On Monday, November 15th , we were given a guided tour of St. Canice's Graveyard, which is near Finglas Village.
We found it to be a very interesting place and we all enjoyed our visit there. The first thing we noticed was how quiet and tranquil it was, even though there are busy roads right outside the walls. There were lots of trees, greenery and birdsong.
Our tour guide , Dearbhla, pointed out the most important things on the site. This included the Nethercross, which is about 1,000 years old & is the only high cross in Dublin. The Nethercross is now quite weathered, so the carvings on it can't be easily seen any more. We learned that it was hand crafted and at one stage had to be buried in a field for about 200 years to avoid destruction!
Dearbhla also showed us the ruins of the church on the site. Originally, there had been a monastery here, founded by St. Canice. Over time, more & more people came to live near the monastery and this is how the village of Finglas came to exist. Around the ruins of St. Canice's Church, we saw a type of burial place called a vault.
Dearbhla also pointed out to us the different type of grave markers - head stone, obelisks, iron crosses, table tomb and box tomb. As the graveyard has been in use for a very long period of time, a lot of the head stones are so weathered that we can't easily read anymore what's on them. Dearbhla showed us the best - and least damaging- way to find out what's on them, using white paper & carbon paper.
We learned that a famous person, Eliza Wollstonecraft is buried there - her niece, Mary Shelley, wrote the famous book, "Frankenstein". We found out that grave robbers and bodysnatchers really existed in the past!!
All in all, we found our visit to be very interesting & we enjoyed it. A lot of us would like to get the opportunity to go back again some other time.
