Glasnevin and Drumcondra

A city of the dead that tells the story of the living

Glasnevin Cemetery was founded in 1832 by Daniel O’Connell, who campaigned for a non-denominational burial ground in Ireland after Catholic law forbade priests from performing rites at Protestant graveyards. The result is the country’s largest cemetery, with around 1.5 million burials across 50 hectares, and a roll-call of notable graves that amounts to a who’s who of modern Irish history.

Location	3 km north of city centre, Finglas Road
Time needed	2–3 hours
Getting there	Bus 4, 9, 13 or 40 from city centre; ~30 min
Cost	Free to walk; guided tours from around €13
Best time	Year-round; avoid Sunday crowds

Visiting Glasnevin is not a morbid exercise. It is one of the most direct ways to understand 200 years of Irish politics, religion, sport and culture, told through the lives of people who are buried here in identifiable graves that you can stand beside. The quality of the guided tours is high, and the cemetery’s own museum is a genuinely good historical exhibition.

Most visitors to Dublin stay south of the river and never cross to this side of the city, which is part of the appeal. Glasnevin has the feel of a working neighbourhood rather than a sightseeing district, and the cemetery is the one place here that rewards a deliberate trip. If you are building a wider plan, the Dublin first-time guide shows where a northside half-day fits among the headline sights, and where to stay in Dublin explains how the northside compares as a base.

Who is buried here

The grave of Daniel O’Connell — “the Liberator,” the politician who won Catholic Emancipation — lies under a round tower that is a Glasnevin landmark. Michael Collins, the IRA leader and chief negotiator of the Anglo-Irish Treaty who was killed in an ambush in 1922, is here. Éamon de Valera, who opposed Collins over the Treaty and later became both Taoiseach and President, is buried nearby. The proximity is loaded.

The leaders of the 1916 Rising who were executed at Kilmainham Gaol and died in the years that followed are largely buried in a Republican Plot near the O’Connell monument. Roger Casement, the British diplomat and Irish nationalist executed for treason in 1916, was repatriated here in 1965 after state burial at Westminster.

Others in the cemetery include Brendan Behan (playwright and IRA member), Luke Kelly of The Dubliners, and Christy Ring (the Cork hurler, widely considered the greatest GAA player of any era). The breadth of the roll-call reflects what kind of institution this is — not just a political monument but a genuine national burial ground.

What makes the roll-call so striking is how closely the graves sit together. Figures who were bitter opponents in life now lie within a short walk of one another, and a good guide uses that geography to explain the Treaty split, the Civil War and the long argument over what an independent Ireland should be. Standing at a grave while someone tells you what the person did, and who disagreed with them, is a very different experience from reading a plaque in a museum. For the wider story behind these names, the Irish revolution history walk is a useful companion.

The guided tours

The Glasnevin Cemetery guided tours run daily and are the best way to visit for anyone who wants the historical context properly laid out. Guides navigate the graves with a clear narrative arc, covering the cemetery’s foundation, the political history of Ireland as reflected in who is buried here and why, and the social history of Dublin’s working class in the Victorian and early twentieth-century sections.

The “Dead Interesting” tour (also available via GetYourGuide) is a lighter, more anecdote-driven version aimed at visitors who want the stories without the full history lecture. Both are around 90 minutes.

The cemetery’s own staff-led tours tend to be stronger than third-party guides who include Glasnevin as one stop on a broader tour. If this is the primary reason you are visiting the northside, book the cemetery’s own tour.

Choosing between the tour styles

If you are unsure which tour suits you, think about what you want to take away. The fuller historical tour suits anyone who already knows a little about the Rising or the Treaty and wants the detail filled in. The lighter, story-led version suits mixed groups, families with older children, or visitors who are curious but not specialists. Either way, go with a guide rather than relying on a printed map alone: the guide chooses the graves worth stopping at, which saves you from walking the grounds without knowing what you are looking at.

If you would rather move at your own speed, a self-paced audio tour with transport included takes the logistics out of the northside trip, though you lose the chance to ask a guide questions at the graves.

Tours move at a steady walking pace and spend most of their time outdoors, so dress for the weather on the day. Rain is a normal part of Dublin life, and the Dublin weather guide is worth a glance before you set out.

The Glasnevin Museum

The Glasnevin Cemetery Museum, adjacent to the main gate on the Finglas Road side, holds a permanent exhibition on the history of the cemetery and the people buried here, with particular focus on the Famine period and the revolutionary era. The exhibition is well produced, with a strong genealogy section that reflects the cemetery’s role as a research resource.

The museum also holds Ireland’s most comprehensive burial records, and the online database at glasnevintrust.ie allows visitors to search for specific graves before they arrive — particularly useful for anyone visiting with a genealogical purpose.

The museum is also a sensible shelter if the weather turns while you are on site, and it works well as a first stop: seeing the exhibition before you walk the grounds means the names on the graves already mean something. Anyone tracing a family connection should search the online database in advance and bring the details to the staff, who can point you in the right direction. For more on how Ireland’s history of hardship shaped the people buried here, the Great Famine guide adds useful background.

Drumcondra

Drumcondra, the residential neighbourhood surrounding the cemetery and stretching toward the Royal Canal, is a mostly overlooked part of Dublin for visitors — largely residential, with red-brick terraces, a large student population from Dublin City University’s nearby campus, and a scattering of solid, unpretentious pubs rather than destination bars.

Griffith Avenue, one of Dublin’s longest tree-lined residential streets, runs through the area and is worth a short detour if you appreciate early-twentieth-century suburban planning. There is little here to build a full day around, but it rounds out a Glasnevin visit if you have time before or after the cemetery, particularly for a quiet coffee away from the more tourist-heavy parts of the city.

A slow northside afternoon

A relaxed way to use Drumcondra is to treat it as the second half of a day rather than a destination. After the cemetery, walk the quieter residential streets, stop at a local café, and let the pace drop. The area gives a glimpse of everyday Dublin that the centre cannot, and it pairs naturally with the Dublin coffee culture guide if you like to seek out good independent cafés. For a quite different feel on the same side of the river, Phoenix Park offers open green space and is a natural next stop after a heavy historical morning.

Practical visiting tips

The cemetery is large — 50 hectares — and the grounds are not fully signposted for casual exploration, so a guided tour or the museum’s map is genuinely useful if you want to find specific graves rather than wander. Comfortable, weatherproof shoes matter, as many of the older paths are gravel or grass rather than paved. The cemetery is a working burial ground with funerals taking place regularly; visitors are expected to be quiet and respectful around any service in progress, and staff will redirect tour groups away from active funerals as a matter of course.

Photography is part of many visits, but the same courtesy applies as anywhere people come to remember their dead: keep your distance from mourners, keep your voice low, and ask your guide if you are unsure what is appropriate. Bring water and a layer you can add or remove, since the grounds are open and exposed in places. Take your time rather than trying to see everything; the cemetery rewards a slower, more selective visit, and it is better to hear four stories properly than to rush past twenty graves.

Getting there

Glasnevin is about three kilometres north of the city centre. The most direct bus route is the 40 from O’Connell Street (stop by the Gresham Hotel), which runs frequently and takes about twenty minutes to the cemetery gates. Buses 4, 9 and 13 also serve the area. There is no DART or Luas connection.

The Gravedigger pub — formally John Kavanagh’s — sits directly opposite the cemetery gates on the Finglas Road. It is a genuinely old pub (opened 1833, contemporary with the cemetery itself) with a no-music, no-television policy and a reputation for well-poured Guinness. It is worth visiting for its own sake and makes a natural endpoint to a cemetery visit.

If you plan to use buses several times in a day, the Leap Card guide explains how to pay, and getting around Dublin covers the wider network. Since there is no rail link, build a little slack into your timings and check your return route before you leave the cemetery, especially later in the day.

For an evening twist on the same theme, a ghost bus ride with a pub stop brings the darker folklore of the city together with a drink, and the Dublin ghost tours guide compares the other after-dark options.

The pub opposite the gates is also a good place to sit down and talk through what you have just seen. For other pubs where the drink and the atmosphere are the point, the local pubs guide lists more options across the city.

Pairing Glasnevin with the 1916 story

The most focused historical day in Dublin combines Glasnevin in the morning with the GPO Museum on O’Connell Street at midday and Kilmainham Gaol in the afternoon. This is a long but coherent day — covering the Rising, the execution, and the burial in sequence. It requires an early Kilmainham booking (weeks in advance) and comfortable shoes; the distances are manageable by bus and taxi.

For a less intensive version, pair Glasnevin Cemetery with the EPIC Museum at Dublin Docklands — both are about Irish identity and history, both are north of the Liffey, and together they give a full day of substantial content without requiring the advance planning that Kilmainham demands.

Visitors with only one or two days in the city may prefer to fold Glasnevin into a longer plan, and the Dublin 3-day itinerary and the history buff itinerary both show how a history-focused trip can be arranged. The best choice depends on how much of your time you want to spend on the Rising and its aftermath, and how much you want to keep free for lighter sights.

The 1916 Easter Rising guide and the Glasnevin Cemetery guide both contain more detail on individual graves and the history of the site.