The passing years have called a halt on both of those men. How little we are conscious of the flight of time until suddenly we find our thoughts, which before have all been towards the future, have unconsciously to us turned towards the past, and we are looking backward and not forward. Then we realize with a sinking heart that for us youth is over and done with, that for us there is no future save beyond the far horizon.
The memorial to O'Connell, appropriate in every respect, rears itself in the stately form of an ancient round tower. Simple and dignified, one cannot imagine a more appropriate monument to the man who sleeps beneath it. The tower is of grey stone smoothly polished and rises from a circle under which is the vault of O'Connell. Around this runs a broad, stone walk which in its turn is encircled by a rampart, holding many vaults whose doors open upon the walk, and being all unlocked you may enter where you will once you pass the outer gate of the circle, generally locked. To-day, however, the workmen are redecorating the O'Connell vault and we are allowed to enter.
Photo by W. Leonard
Daniel O'Connell's Monument
Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
Passing down a broad flight of steps and through an iron grill we find confronting us, across the circular stone pathway, another grill closing the centre vault, over whose door is the name "O'Connell." The great Irishman sleeps alone in the centre of this vault in an altar-like tomb, through the stone quarterfoils of which you may see and touch his oaken coffin. The inscription is on a brass frieze around the top. In an adjoining catacomb are the coffins of several members of his family. I think such mausoleums are always more impressive when the stone walls and ceilings are unadorned, but such is not the taste here and the ceilings and walls were being painted in gorgeous colours.