Qualla: Glasnevin

Glasnevin: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SSCOhA, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin wrote a peeved letter in 1725 about Glasnevin. It was, he complained, 'the receptacle for thieves and rogues. The first search when anything was stolen, was there, and when any couple had a mind to retire to be wicked there was their harbour.' Glasnevin, on the north bank of the Tolka three kilometres from the centre of Dublin, had been a quiet monastic site since the 6th century, a battlefield in 1014, an aristocratic retreat by the 18th, and a respectable working-class neighbourhood by the 20th. The archbishop's complaint was correct as far as it went, but Glasnevin had also -- between the wickedness -- founded the largest cemetery in Ireland, raised the first botanic gardens in the country, and produced a meteorological office that is one of the most architecturally significant buildings of 1970s Dublin. It is, despite its archbishop, a serious neighbourhood.

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Image: SSCOhA | CC BY-SA 4.0

Glasnevin: Saint Mobhi's Monastery

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit C O'Flanagan, CC BY-SA 2.0. The settlement begins, by tradition, with Saint Mobhi -- also called Berchan -- in the 6th century (perhaps the 5th). He founded a monastery on the north bank of the River Tolka and gathered a school of pupils around him. One of those pupils was a young man named Colum mac Felim,...

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Image: C O'Flanagan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glasnevin: The Battle of Clontarf

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Bridge, CC BY-SA 2.0. On Good Friday 1014, the Tolka's south bank was the scene of one of the most famous engagements in Irish history. The High King Brian Boru and his army faced a coalition of Vikings from Dublin and Leinster Irish rebels led by Mael Morda mac Murchada. The battle was bloody: Wikipe...

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Image: Albert Bridge | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glasnevin: The Dead Centre of Dublin

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Smirkybec, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1832, on land purchased for the purpose by the Catholic Emancipation campaigner Daniel O'Connell, Glasnevin Cemetery opened its gates. The cemetery -- officially Prospect Cemetery, but universally called Glasnevin -- was Ireland's first burial ground where Catholics could be i...

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Image: Smirkybec | CC BY-SA 4.0

Glasnevin: The Botanic Gardens

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JP, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1795 the lands of the poet Thomas Tickell on the north side of the Tolka, immediately adjacent to where the cemetery would later be founded, were bought by the Irish Parliament and given to the Royal Dublin Society to establish Ireland's first botanic gardens. The 19-hectare g...

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Image: JP | CC BY-SA 2.0

Glasnevin: Met Eireann and Griffith Avenue

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit SeoR, CC BY-SA 4.0. Modern Glasnevin layers state institutions on top of its monastic past. Met Eireann, the Irish meteorological office, occupies a remarkable pyramid-shaped building designed by Liam McCormick on Glasnevin Hill, opened in 1975 on the site of a former juvenile detention centre. The ...

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Image: SeoR | CC BY-SA 4.0