Site-Responsive Intervention
Goldenbridge Cemetery, Inchicore, Dublin
12 – 29 September 2024
Goldenbridge Cemetery is a living archive. Spread across two acres, it speaks directly to political and social landscapes from the early-nineteenth century onward, communicating the histories of the communities it continues to serve. Nestled between the Camac and the Grand Canal, Goldenbridge was the first Catholic graveyard built following emancipation. Opened in 1828 by Daniel O’Connell, this walled Victorian garden cemetery inadvertently became a time capsule, when new burials were stopped, leading to it being closed to the public. To ensure its long-term sustainability, the cemetery needed to be revived as a space for the local community. As such burials, resumed in 2017, and since 2019, it has also been home to arts development organisation, Common Ground, which occupies the old caretaker’s lodge.

All images: Clodagh Emoe and Donal Lally, ALTAR, site-responsive intervention, Goldenbridge Cemetery, Inchicore, Dublin, September 2024; photographs by Kate-Bowe O’Brien, courtesy of the artists and Common Ground.
This new chapter has seen reengagement with the community through a series of projects facilitated by Common Ground. The latest of these projects is ALTAR, a site-responsive intervention for Goldenbridge, developed in collaboration between artist Clodagh Emoe and architect Donal Lally, that seeks to highlight its multifaceted history. This is achieved through an installation within the cemetery, a series of public events, and a publication, which each draw together collaborators with a wealth of diverse knowledge.
The installation sees a wooden box, representing both altar and casket, installed within the original mortuary chapel, a neoclassical Roman temple from 1835. For the events, the casket is opened and from it an 18-metre-long piece of fabric is unravelled to cover the platform in front of the chapel, extending down the steps and resting in front of a birch tree – rumoured to have been planted by O’Connell himself. The ecological wool is dyed an array of different colours using ingredients, such as ivy, weld, and rhubarb root, all of which grow onsite. Similarly, the wooden casket was made from yew and birch – native trees also found within the walls of the garden cemetery. The fabric provides a temporary space for visitors to sit and listen to the readings, also offering a visual and physical connection between the architecture and its surrounding environment. The birch tree has grown, like the city around Goldenbridge, and its canopy stretches ever closer to the mortuary chapel.
The public events, which took place on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons, included experts across a broad range of disciplines, from music and horticulture to architecture and folklore, which richly intertwined with the history of the site. The process of inviting contributors to a cemetery, where the land of the living meets the dead, brought spatial and temporal considerations to the fore, enhanced through key decisions made by Emoe and Lally. For example, the chapel was originally built with no windows, but they were subsequently added, before later being covered over with wood. For ALTAR, the wooden covers were removed, providing another annotation in the space’s architectural history.

In addition, there is no electricity within Goldenbridge Cemetery, and Emoe and Lally declined the option to bring any in. As a result, there are no lights during the events, aside from a few torches to aid readers, and instead the city hums away, glowing beyond its walls. Since the cemetery normally closes at 3pm daily, the evening events provided a rare opportunity to experience the cemetery at night, with the darkness providing a glimpse into burial practices of past generations. On a stormy Thursday evening, it’s hard not to think of mourners at Mass Rocks in the dead of night – or countless others worldwide – with no cover and no light.
Visiting the cemetery on a day between events is an altogether different experience. The crowds have dissipated, and the fabric has been removed – a burial shroud returned to its container, lying in state until the next event. The intimacy of the empty space allows your curiosity about the box to be indulged in a way that would have been inappropriate during an event. You find yourself pacing the cemetery, observing the gravestones and memorials in a pensive manner, akin to walking around an art gallery.

The grave of James Whelan from 1820 has been disturbed and broken by the growing Birch tree, along with that of Michael Keogh of Spitalfields. We remember people like Patrick Hoey of Braithwaite Street – who buried his beloved son, also Patrick, on 22 July 1836, aged just 15 years old – and Eugene Lynch, an eight-year-old boy killed during the Easter Rising. These personal stories are wrapped up in the history of the state, with two former Taoisigh, W.T. and Liam Cosgrave, also being buried at Goldenbridge Cemetery, while mass burials took place here during the Great Famine (1845-49) and during the cholera epidemic of 1867.1
The ultimate success of ALTAR is in highlighting the personal and communal histories that are contained within graveyards. Like the seasons that bronze and remove the birch tree of its leaves, before returning them again in spring, Goldenbridge’s history will continue to evolve, blending fact and folklore in rich and compelling ways.
Aidan Kelly Murphy is a writer based in Dublin.
aidankellymurphy.com
1 While Cosgrave never officially held the office of Taoiseach, he is widely considered Ireland’s first Taoiseach, due to having been the Free State’s first head of government.