The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 52, June 26, 1841

Twenty years had nearly elapsed, and no stone marked the grate where Curran was interred: still Ireland continued unpossessed of the remains of one of the ablest of her orators and purest of her patriots, and seemed, in this instance especially, to justify the reproach of her habitual neglect towards the posthumous reputation of her great men.
A senior fellow of our University, who had no other share in his subsequent elevation to a mitre than the circumstance of having rendered himself worthy of it, observes on the subject of this commemoration as follows:—“It (a letter) shows me, however, that you intended to apply to me on a subject well calculated to excite my sympathy; and it gives me an opportunity of indulging my own feelings, and of promoting my own honour, in avowing my admiration and respect for splendid talents and disinterested patriotism. I shall therefore be flattered by the insertion of my name in your list, though I do not entertain the ambitious thought of my doing honour to the memory of a man who has erected for himself a monument greater and more lasting than can be contained in any cemetery.”
The wood-cut engraving prefixed to this article is descriptive of Curran’s tomb at Glasnevin, of which Mr J. T. Papworth, A.R.H.A., architect of the Royal Dublin Society, was the architect, and conductor of its construction and successful execution. It is a fac simile of the celebrated chef-d’œuvre of the antique known as the tomb of Scipio Barbatious, exemplars of which are favourite objects of purchase to the visiters of Rome, and lovers of virtu. It is a magnificent specimen of that simple, durable, massive grandeur, which the early artists of the mistress of the world deemed suitable to the character of a great man’s sepulchre; fit to outlive, like its great Roman prototype, numerous generations of men, and bear down the name of its honoured object to the admiration of a most distant posterity. Napoleon’s tomb at St Helena was of course the suggestion of the best taste of France and Italy combined. It bears a close resemblance to that of Scipio. The material of the latter is of an inferior description of stone, greatly surpassed by that of Curran’s tomb, which is composed of the best specimen, perhaps, extant, of our finest Irish granite, and sparkles like silver in the sun. The application of this product to sepulchral purposes is recent and appropriate. The late palace of our dukes, the late halls of our parliament, the testimonials commemorating the victors who most exalted the glory of Britain on the ocean and by land, our custom-house and post-office, our courts of justice, the harbours of Wicklow, Howth, and Dunleary, the spire of St Patrick’s, the grandest of our bridges, with most other of our magnificent public edifices, have long displayed and will long display the value of our granite for beauty and solidity. It has superseded the use of Portland stone, for, capable of being cut into the finer figures of architecture, it admits of any shape, it withstands any weather; and harder than freestone, and hardening in the air, and susceptible of every formation from the chisel, the mallet, and the hammer, it stands of all the mineral kingdom most faithful to the trust of monumental fame. But it is not by such memorials, as was justly observed by the eminent prelate already referred to; it is not by such memorials as art may construct from marble or brass, or our own enduring granite, that the immortality of Curran’s fame can be achieved, it is in the great efforts of his transcendant genius we best can contemplate his deathless monument, and in that respect it may be said of him as Johnson said on a like occasion,