THE REMAINS OF more than 1,600 cholera victims from the 1800s that were discovered during Luas works have now been buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin Councillor Donna Cooney and other guests attended a ceremony at the cemetery to mark the reinterment of their remains and unveil a headstone to remember them by.

A new exhibition has also opened in Glasnevin Cemetery Visitor Centre about the 1832 cholera pandemic, which killed around 25,378 people in Ireland between March and December 1832. More than 11,000 people in Dublin were infected during that period, of whom it is believed between 5,079 and 6,000 died from the disease. 

In 2010, the environmental impact assessment report for the Luas Cross City project identified a laneway in Grangegorman as a possible location of a cholera graveyard from 1832.

In 2015, archaeological test excavations for the new Luas identified two charnel trenches containing disarticulated human remains within the laneway between Grangegorman and Broadstone.

A full archaeological excavation from October 2015 to February 2016 and specialist post-excavation analysis from 2016 to 2021 were undertaken by Rubicon Heritage Services for Transport Infrastructure Ireland. 

During the  excavations, 1,617 individuals were recovered, comprising 34 articulated burials and over 19,200 disarticulated bones. 

It was not possible to identify any of the individuals from their remains.

However, a headstone was recovered with the inscription: “Here lies the earthly remains of Anthony Donlevy who died 28th July 1832. This small tribute of affection is erected to his memory by his beloved wife Jane Donlevy.”

Subsequent research has suggested that Anthony was born in Cliffony, Sligo and married his wife Jane in Kilcullen, Kildare in April 1798.

The headstone has now been erected at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Speaking at the event, Cooney said: “It is a great honour to be invited here today to unveil the plaque to honour the victims of the Cholera Pandemic, to officially open the exhibition and to finally see these people’s remains laid to rest in this beautiful cemetery, may they rest in peace.”

Uncovering the past

A statement from Transport Infrastructure Ireland said that the excavation was an “extremely difficult task for all involved, particularly due to the nature of human tragedy the works represented”.

“From the outset it has been the wish of TII to ensure these individuals were treated with the utmost respect. Through this formal burial in consecrated ground, it is the intention of TII and Glasnevin Cemeteries Trust that the dignity of these individuals is restored, that their loss is never forgotten, and that they may now truly Rest in Peace.” 

Historical research indicates that during the pandemic, to address the disease and care for sick people in Richmond Female Penitentiary in Grangegorman, which had just closed, the penitentiary became the ‘Dublin Cholera Hospital’ and began accepting patients in April 1832.

Victims of the disease were initially buried in Bully’s Acre in Kilmainham but it quickly reached capacity and a new burial ground was needed. The Richmond Penitentiary gardens came into use as a cholera burial ground in May 1832.

There had previously been some uncertainty as to the exact location of the cemetery.

According to TII, records show that the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) purchased 3 acres of the penitentiary lands in the 1870s to facilitate expansion of their adjacent Broadstone railyard (the former MGWR terminus).

Accounts of those expansion works noted that burials had been disturbed, exhumed and reinterred in a ‘patch of ground’, but they had not identified a specific location.