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Flickr/William Murphy

Double Take: The Dublin 7 church with a crypt full of mummies down below

Meet the ‘Big Four’ at one of Dublin city’s more macabre landmarks, St Michan’s Church.

IN ONE OF Dublin’s oldest churches, you’ll find haunting scenes fit for a John Carpenter blockbuster.

As you pass The Four Courts en route to Smithfield, turn off at Church St and you’ll pass St Michan’s Church. From the outside it already looks imposing, but inside it’s even more macabre.

After checking out Wolfe Tone’s death mask, visitors to St Michan’s can head to the underground crypt to view coffins of Ireland’s ancient elite – and a set of mummified remains.

St Michan’s is now a popular tourist destination among those looking for a more creepy insight into Dublin’s past, largely in part to the group of mummies known among historians as “The Big Four”.

The original St Michan’s Church was built in 1095, before it was further developed in 1686. According to Discover Ireland, St Michan’s was “the only church located on the northside of Dublin city” for the first 580 or so years of its existence.

The structure, as it stands today, was finally completed in 1825. St Michan’s burial chambers hold the remains of important Irish families dating from the seventeenth, eighteenth and and nineteenth centuries.

Today, visitors from around the world come to explore the famous crypts found below the altar. Between the limestone walls, there are five long burial chambers.

In one of the chambers, three open caskets and a collapsed coffin, covered in hundreds of years of dust, contain The Big Four. Off to the side of the burial chamber, you’ll find random bones and skulls around a closed coffin.

So who were these four humans, and how did they come to rest at St Michan’s? Well, that part is unclear.

Ghost Catcher, a site devoted to spectral stories from Ireland and Great Britain, suggests the bodies belonged to an “alleged crusader”, a “thief” and a “nun” – and claims you’ll hear “whispering, murmuring” sounds as you move through the vault.

And how have the mummies remained intact over hundreds of years? Dublin.ie suggests that the “constant dry atmosphere” combined with “methane gas that leaks up from the soggy ground” have persevered the relatively intact remains.

Who needs expensive skincare, eh?

More Double Take: The mysterious African rhino that appeared overnight in a Dublin river>

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    Mute Irish Genius
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:20 AM

    Why did no Irish media outlet investigate this, it’s a huge issue

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    Mute The Risen
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:54 AM

    @Irish Genius: Because any journalist who tries to hold power to account in this state in any meaningful way gets blackballed e.g. Gemma O’Doherty after she broke the story on Martin Callinan.

    Instead we get spoonfed stories about leos socks.

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    Mute Trevor Hayden
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    Mar 4th 2019, 1:07 PM

    @Irish Genius: I’d imagine because Ireland’s version of Donald Trump forbid it.

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    Mute Roland D Hay
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    Mar 4th 2019, 8:11 PM

    @The Risen: You mean the Irish Katie Hopkins?
    Really clutching at straws.

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    Mute TamuMassif2019
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    Mar 7th 2019, 12:15 AM

    @Irish Genius: Friends of friends unlike FB lol.

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    Mute Adrian
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:26 AM

    Cue the list (also known as friends of kenny), who will make statements saying they were never lobbied by their “friend” kenny, and thats supposed to make it OK then!

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    Mute Adrian
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:48 AM

    I also think sandberg was playing them, being intentionally extra nice to them when they were supposed to be stern to facebook about their business.

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    Mute Jonny
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:13 AM

    I’ve long said Kenny and the rest of the parasites are rotten to the core, I truly hope someday the truth comes out about what many politicians have done,not to be trusted whatsoever under any circumstances.

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    Mute Milk The Drones
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:24 AM

    @Jonny:
    It wouldn’t be a scandal by Irish standards.
    FG/FF would sell their Granny’s for a touch of US investment. No problem going to court with the EU on behalf of Apple and the annual tradition of cow towing to the US President in the White House every Paddys day. The 51st state and all of that.
    Winky winky backy slappy.
    Proudly promoting cronyism since 1926 with a hearty laugh.

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    Mute Kerry Wynne
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:16 AM

    Of course they would, wouldn’t they? It is not as if there would be a paper trail to uncover what went on.

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    Mute MickN
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:54 AM

    As if they were going to say yes he lobbied us…. FFG Out…

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    Mar 4th 2019, 12:54 PM

    Checked the Indo and other online “newspapers” this morning, not a dickiebird about this scandal. Rest assured were it someone remotely connected with SF it would be headline news for a week.

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    Mute Michael Nolan
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:58 AM

    Don’t know what’s all the gasp shock horror for this is the man that sold the country to the lowest bidder ..fn parasite.. .journalism in Ireland haha give me a break…

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    Mute John Kelly
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:30 AM

    @Michael Nolan: who did he sell us to … I think we still own Ireland last time I looked it up…

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    Mute Michael Nolan
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    Mar 4th 2019, 12:09 PM

    @John Kelly: him and his mate noonan goldman sacs …vulture funds ….did nod off for a decade or 2 ..in a few years you won’t be able to buy a house .have another snooze check back when your proper rested

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    Mar 4th 2019, 2:50 PM

    @John Kelly: The way FG have things running, soon enough, there won’t be a brick, a block, or a blade of grass owned by a native Irish person in the country.

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    Mute David Lawlor
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:12 AM

    Sniffs the air cos there’s an awful smell of BS all of a sudden

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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:23 AM

    @David Lawlor: Of course there is. It’s always in plentiful supply here at The Journal.

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    Mute The Risen
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:52 AM

    Once again we have to turn to the UK newspapers to tell us whats happening in this rotten little state. Shameful.

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    Mute John Kelly
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:31 AM

    @The Risen: no we don’t… it’s a .uk spin pile of shite … rubbish journalism

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    Mute Dave Doyle
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    Mar 4th 2019, 12:52 PM

    @John Kelly: ‘A UK pile of shyte” based on court papers? The only shyte is what’s coming from FG supporters

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    Mute Squiddley Diddley
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:15 AM

    The ODPC enforces laws. I thought the alleged lobbying was at the law-making level?

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    Mute James Wallace
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:23 AM

    I’m not a fan of Enda Kenny or a supporter, but remember, this report just happens to come out now, from a pro Brexit anti Irish source. I’ll wait and see how it develops before I condemn Kenny on this issue. There has never been anything in his career to indicate he’s corrupt so even if he did do he most likely was thinking of jobs for the country, like he’s supposed to do.. If it happened, it’s a misjudgenent on his part, but in the interest of fairness let’s wait and see.

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    Mute Brendan Greene
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:29 AM

    @James Wallace: The Observer is a left-wing decidedly anti-Brexit newspaper with a high reputation for accuracy.
    Incidentally, it is also generally sympathetic towards Ireland.

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    Mute Pixie McMullen
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    Mar 4th 2019, 10:31 AM

    @James Wallace: Report actually comes out of Court documents in California, It`s not made up by an pro Brexit and anti Irish source though.
    Unless you are privy to info the rest of us aren`t.

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    Mute MickN
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    Mar 4th 2019, 1:31 PM

    @Brendan Greene: James just got schooled…

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    Mute Martin Brennan
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:18 AM

    Of course not blueshirts

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    Mute Peter Coen
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:47 AM

    If it quacks like a duck,and walks like a duck, ITS A DUCK.

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    Mute Martin Brennan
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    Mar 4th 2019, 1:44 PM

    Of course not blueshirts never would they seek to influence

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    Mute tweetforjunk
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:24 AM

    Well in fairness he did say ‘categorically’ so he must be telling the truth.

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    Mute Peter Cooper
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    Mar 4th 2019, 11:19 AM

    It would be very hard to ask him anytime now he never in work if I don’t go to work I don’t get paid

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    Mute Ronaldo Blanc
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    Mar 4th 2019, 4:18 PM

    He was always alittle weasel cosying up to the Yanks and acting like Darby O Gill in the White House on Paddy’s Day.

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    Mute Brinster
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    Mar 4th 2019, 7:51 PM

    @Jonathan Beatty:

    “If he were innocent…”

    Fair play Jonathan.

    Get the slander in immediately.

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