Burial ground, Dublin South City, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Burial Grounds
Somewhere in Dublin's south city, a biscuit factory quietly displaced the dead.
What had been a Huguenot burial ground for well over a century was purchased in 1966 by Messrs. Jacobs, the well-known biscuit manufacturers, and the remains interred there were lifted and moved to a dedicated plot in Mount Jerome graveyard. A plaque on the remaining wall is now the only visible sign that the ground was ever anything other than commercial premises.
The cemetery had served Dublin's Huguenot community, a Protestant non-conformist congregation descended largely from French refugees who fled Catholic persecution following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Many settled in Ireland, bringing with them skills in weaving, silversmithing, and trade, and establishing their own places of worship and burial separate from the Church of Ireland. This particular ground was in use from 1711 to 1879, a span of nearly 170 years, during which generations of that community were laid to rest here. Gravestone inscriptions recorded from the site cover the period 1716 to 1883, suggesting that memorials were erected or noted even slightly beyond the cemetery's active use. When Jacobs acquired the site in the mid-twentieth century, the re-interment at Mount Jerome, a large Victorian cemetery in Harold's Cross, at least kept the remains within the city.
For anyone trying to trace the site or its records, the most useful resource is a map listing gravestone inscriptions from the period 1716 to 1883, held in Dublin Corporation's Dublin and Irish Collections, as catalogued in the Dublin Public Libraries' Directory of Graveyards in the Dublin Area, second edition, published in 1990. That directory remains a practical starting point for genealogical or historical research into any of the families buried here. The plaque on the wall is worth locating if you are in the area, a small, easy-to-miss marker for a community whose presence in Dublin shaped the city's craft and commercial life for generations.