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Updated 12.32
Shane MacThomais surveying his beloved Glasnevin Cemetery in 2010. Image: Niall Carson/PA Images archive.
SHANE MACTHOMAIS, the high-profile resident historian for Glasnevin Cemetery, has passed away.
MacThomais’s entertaining and knowledgeable tours of the largest non-denominational graveyard in the country made him a popular figure among visitors and staff alike, and he was a regular voice on radio and in articles about the history of Glasnevin/Prospect Cemetery.
Glasnevin Trust confirmed to TheJournal.ie this morning that MacThomais had died suddenly yesterday. His body was discovered at Glasnevin Cemetery at around noon. He was just 46 years of age.
George McCullagh, CEO of Glasnevin Trust, told TheJournal.ie that MacThomais first came to the organisation on a FÁS scheme but “stood out – and was with us ever since, man and boy”.
McCullagh said:
The staff and I are absolutely devastated. He was a colleague but he was also a close personal friend. Shane absolutely loved Glasnevin.He was our star.
He is survived by his daughter, mother, sister and brother.
Most recently, MacThomais was involved in plans for the refurbishment of the O’Connell Tower, a focal point in the cemetery. The tower was bombed by loyalist terrorists in 1971, knocking out a winding wooden staircase which once reached the windows at the top of the 168ft-structure.
In an interview with TheJournal.ie last Christmas, MacThomais said that a new staircase was being built and that he was looking forward to when visitors could once again gain access to the views from the top “to the Wicklow Mountains, up to the Cooleys or Mourne Mountains to the north and across the land to Meath”.
MacThomais himself was the first to see those views in decades, scaling the outside of the tower by ladder last year. He shared this picture of his feat with us:
Image: Shane MacThomais/Glasnevin Trust.
Passionate about chronicling the ‘residents’ and history of Glasnevin and related cemeteries, MacThomais wrote a book in 2012 doing just that. His father Eamonn was also a well-known historian, and had a television series about the history of Dublin in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
At the publication of his book published by Mercier Press – entitled, with characteristic humour, Dead Interesting – MacThomais told the Southside People,
This has been both a professional and personal journey for me. I grew up surrounded by history through my father so it was a natural progression to do what I’m doing today. It’s nice to be able to carry on the family tradition and that love of history.
All proceeds from the book went towards restoration and maintenance of graves in Glasnevin.
A feature-length documentary about Glasnevin Cemetery and its history – which features interviews with Shane MacThomais – is currently in post-production.
Shane MacThomais (back to camera) is seen here in May of last year giving a tour to Edward, the Duke of Kent. He was showing how the graves of a 1916 Easter Rising Volunteer, Edward Ennis, and a sergeant in the British Army Royal Dublin Fusileers, Patrick Dunne, who both died in 1916, lie side by side in Glasnevin Cemetery. Image: Julien Behal/PA Images
This was Shane relaying the tale of the death of Daniel O’Connell inside the crypt at the foot of the O’Connell Tower for Storymap Dublin in 2011:
via Storymap Dublin
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The fees haven’t been scrapped. The taxpayers are now paying them.
@Hugh De Payans: who else would you like to see oaykng then Hugh?
@Hugh De Payans: who else do you suggest pays for social services?
@Hugh De Payans: must have private health Insurance, so.
@hard yaka: what will happen is,the hospitals will only bring in private health care,and make it that way,and the ordinary taxpayer and medical cars holders,won’t be seen,they have a plan already set up,mark my words.
Terrible idea, I think you should always pay something for a service even if it’s just ten euros.
@matthew donoghue: Visitors paying for parking would easily be more than that…
@Ronan O’Keeffe: great idea, only problem is hospitals don’t get the money from hospital car parking fees, thats another thing to look at
@Sue OB: I didn’t realise that.
Some people spent too much time in the USA here. Of course public hospital should be 100% free with the amount of taxpayer money it is allowed each year.
@Yvon Queguiner: the taxpayer is paying the lions share of it anyway. 80 euro per night is a drop in the ocean towards the actual cost of someones hospital stay, and that discounts everyone using a medical care and private/public insurance. I’m sure the 4 billion of usc a year will cover the government some people in here are so worried about being out of pocket.
Now time to abolish hospital parking charges as was promised as part of the programme for government. Families have enough on their plates having someone in hospital without adding to the already stressful situation
When the Elite have serious health issues they are off to the USA like a light! Irish healthcare is substandard. That’s the reality. Letting the government be in charge of any service results in lower quality.
It’s easy scrap the fees,when people are on waiting list for years,Even private health insurance can not get u seen with in 2 weeks like it was before,but people who are on list with medical cards,God help them all,because the hospitals will def only see private health,to claw the money back,we need only think back to 2006,when the lies were told,and changed the health boards to the HSE,Mary Harney lied because the wanted hospitals closed in every County,it took a few years to see the damage,HSE has too much power,like the local Councils..they won’t answer even to the government
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