An Cosantóir

| 31 While many soldiers rotated through Royal Barracks as they prepared for deployment overseas, others stayed in Arbour Hill permanently, in its cemetery. Headstones placed around the perimeter wall make interesting reading, revealing men, women and children, all connected to the Royal Barracks and its place in Irish history. Patrick Graham, a winner of the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny lies in the cemetery in an unmarked grave. Three Grenadier Guardsmen who died tragically in a boating accident are also interred there. Others, having served throughout the world, or making ready for deployment, may also be found here, having died from accidents or one of a range of illnesses that plagued the population of the city in those times. However, it was events that took place in the wake of the Easter Rising in 1916 that would catapult Arbour Hill into the consciousness of the Irish people. On Easter Monday, April 24th, 1,500 men, women and teenage boys and girls of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, under the command of Patrick Pearse, occupied a number of strategic buildings in Dublin city in an attempt to gain independence from Britain. After six days of bitter fighting the Volunteers surrendered and as trials by military courts-martial commenced, on May 3rd, the British military authorities prepared a burial plot in the yard of Arbour Hill prison. Between May 3rd and 12th, 14 Irish Volunteer officers were executed in the grounds of Kilmainham Gaol. The bodies of the executed men were brought to Arbour Hill prison in a horse-drawn vehicle, placed in the prepared grave and covered with quicklime. (A British officer made a sketch drawing of the burial site at the time.) In total 97 men and women were sentenced to death but due to public opinion in Ireland and Britain, the British government ordered its military to cease both the trails and the executions. For the next six years the bodies of those who gave their lives in the attempt to gain Irish independence lay guarded but not forgotten within the walls of Arbour Hill prison. As the subsequent Irish War for Independence drew to a close, the newly established Irish Free State army marched into Royal Barracks, which was soon to be renamed Collins Barracks after General Michael Collins. A new chapter in Ireland���s history was about to begin. In the early 1940s the Office of Public Works (OPW) took over the upkeep of the graveyard. When the Department of Defence suggested that a memorial to the 1916 leaders should be erected at the grave site, Gerry McNicholl, assistant architect in the OPW, forwarded a design that incorporated the graves into an open public area. The plan was accepted and work commenced in 1955. A screen wall was constructed in the prison yard that separated the graves of the leaders from the prison itself. Three paved terraces, connected by flights of stone steps, were installed, leading to the finished memorial. The plot in which the leaders are interred was transformed into an open terrace of Wicklow granite (the centre of which holds the graves) covered with a well manicured lawn. The names of those interred, Thomas Clarke, Thomas McDonagh, PH Pearse, Joseph Plunkett, Michael O��� Hanrahan, William Pearse, John McBride, Con Colbert, Edward Daly, Michael Mallin, Se��n Heuston, Eamonn Ceannt, Se��n MacDermott, and James Connolly, are incised on the memorial in both Irish and English. The backdrop to the area is the curved screen wall of Ardbraccan limestone with a gilded cross in the centre. The Proclamation of the Irish republic was hand carved into the wall in Irish and English by sculptor Michael Biggs. The works were completed by the late 1950s and since then many world leaders and foreign dignitaries have visited the Arbour Hill memorial. Arbour Hill church and cemetery continue to play an important role in the history of the state. Every May, following a commemoration service in the church, the president leads a procession from the church to the memorial, where a wreath is laid on behalf of the Irish people in remembrance of all those who lost their lives during the 1916 Rising. Over the years, many members of the Irish Defence Forces will have had the privilege of attending these occasions. Though there is no dedicated war cemetery in Ireland for those who died in the service of the state, the Defence Forces ensures that Arbour Hill Cemetery remains an important key to our past and a symbol of our country���s struggle for independence. Arbour Hill cemetery is open to the public daily. As part of the OPW���s Communities Initiative, military historian Paul O���Brien MA conducts free guided tours of the cemetery. For further information contact www.dublinbattlefieldtours.ie www.military.ie the defence forces magazine

• Cover