Bully’s Acre Cemetery, Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin, Ireland

Bully’s Acre – one thousand years of dead Dubliners

Bully’s Acre was a burial place for Dubliners, rich and poor, for a thousand years, until cholera epidemics led to overuse of the graveyard. The graveyard is inside the gates of the Royal Hospital Kilmainham which also houses the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). I’ve been walking through the grounds for more than twenty years and the gate to Bully’s Acre has always been locked – except on a day in 2011 when I took the opportunity to take these pictures and walked around above the graves of a thousand years of Dubliners.Click here for South Dublin County Libraries’ fascinating archive of photographs by Patrick Healy of Bully’s Acre and artifacts