A Grave Mistake

 ‘Knock-down Ginger’.......

In days gone by, long before iPods, Xboxes, mobile phones and even computers, children got themselves into all sorts of trouble.   Many of their so-called ‘games’ caused annoyance to householders but little permanent damage to their local neighbourhoods.    

One such game was tying thread onto door knockers and hiding some distance away then pulling on it to knock the door of the victim.   Of course when the householder answered the door there was no one outside.    This could go on for quite a while until the occupant realised that he or she had been the victim of ‘Knock-down Ginger’.     ..

Well now then.......this little story is a tragic tale of two boys who took ‘Knock-down Ginger’ to another level.   Before I start it is necessary to tell you a little about a certain Graveyard in Dublin and the fear that ‘Body Snatchers’ instilled in the public during the middle to late Victorian period.

Glasnevin Cemetery, which is officially known as Prospect Cemetery (but by Dublin wit as ‘the Dead Centre of Dublin’) is in the north-side Dublin suburb of Finglas.   It was opened in 1832 and although it is non-denominational the graves of most of the great Irishmen -  patriots, politicians, poets, writers and singers - are interred there.

Up to the opening of Glasnevin, Catholics were barred from burials in consecrated ground by the British Penal Laws and although some Protestant clergy allowed Catholic services to be held at the gravesides in their cemeteries, it was not generally permitted.   

Glasnevin changed all that.  A beautiful section, (and I really love the thought), is that there is a section of the graveyard called ‘The Angels Plot’ where stillborn babies were permitted to be buried.    I do not know if it is still the case, but certainly in those times, such babies, not being baptised, were not permitted to be buried in consecrated ground..............

   

There are two separate cemeteries nowadays some distance apart but the original is highly identifiable by its high stone walls and of all things - watchtowers.   You may not realise why such watchtowers were required so I will explain a little.

   

You see, human surgery was moving forward rapidly during this period and the flow of bodies of those executed by the state – the only bodies available to trainee surgeons -  were becoming fewer and fewer as time went on.

Ireland was at that time ruled by Britain and they decided that it was far more profitably not to hang rebels and other criminals but to transport them to various parts of the world, in particular the American and Caribbean sugar cane plantations, as ‘indentured servants’.   Those that received such reprieves were treated worse than African slaves and seldom if ever did any of them return to Ireland at the end of their ‘sentence’.

The Dublin Royal College of Surgeons had been in existence since 1784, and with the scarcity of ‘legal’ bodies from hangings, some teacher surgeons made up the deficit by buying bodies without asking too many questions.    The problem was of course, that they preferred ‘recently dead’ which caused many a stranger to meet his or her death prematurely.

So, there you have it...........guards in watchtowers to prevent graves from being robbed.
   

Several other methods of protecting the bodies were taken by relatives.   In some cases, close family members would take it in turns to remain at the graveside for up to a week or ten days when presumably the body would not be worth stealing.    Others erected elaborate ironwork covers surrounding the graves.   In America, some even placed a type of Claymore bomb in the coffin and if it was disturbed it would explode.   It was actually granted a patent.......

Those who could not afford such elaborate or indeed dangerous protection had a chain leading out of the coffin through the soil to a bell which stood above the grave.   It is not too ridiculous in fact as the stories from grave robbers and in fact quite a lot of medical evidence of the time proved that quite a high proportion of persons presumed dead were in fact still alive when buried.   So a great many relatives had the ‘bell’ installed presumably so that if the ‘dead’ person revived, he or she could ring the bell and obtain assistance.

Nowadays it is probable that some people place a mobile phone in the coffin with the deceased relative.

 Well, we now come to the nitty-gritty part of the story..........................    

It was early October 1872 and that evening was clear and crisp.   It had been raining heavily the day before.

As I said, a great many of the graves in Glasnevin had such bells fitted in particular on those graves that were some distance from the watchtowers.    Around this time of year, some of the local youngsters thought it hilarious to climb the wall of the cemetery, ring the bell several times then hide and watch.    

When ‘the game’ first started some of the armed guards would make their way to where the ringing sound came from but gave up when they could not find from which grave the sound came.    After several such alarms they did not even bother to leave the tower unless the bell continued to ring.

One young boy, Billy Bryan and his friend Peter Dwyer had a better idea.   Billy took a spool of black thread from his mother’s sewing box and when they had both managed to enter the cemetery at night, actually tied the thread to two of the bells some distance apart.   They then moved well away threading out the line to where they hid.   They then rang one of the bells..............and rang, and rang until two of the guards approached.....

As the two guards searched for the ringing bell, the boys then rang the second bell several times.   Unbeknown to the boys the guards were armed and immediately fired several shots towards the second bell.    Frightened for their lives, the two boys ran but before they got more than twenty feet from where they were hiding they fell headlong into a recently dug but empty grave.    On hearing their screams, the now totally frightened guards cautiously made their way there.

On seeing the boys reaching out with their arms with their bodies covered in mud and muck from the deep grave, one guard did not hesitate.   He fired his gun several times at the ‘bodies’ thinking that they were in fact ghosts rising from their grave.

When daylight arrived, the guards returned to the open grave and on seeing the two bodies, decided to cover them with soil from a pile next to it.    The following day a funeral as arranged arrived and a coffin containing a dead body was placed in the grave without anyone knowing of what now lay beneath it.

When the boys did not return home that evening, their parents did not worry as it was not uncommon for one or the other to stay overnight with his friend and they assumed that this was once again the case.    However, later the next day they reported them missing to the police.

Searches of the surrounding areas including sections of the nearby river Liffey failed to locate the boys..................and so it remained for almost thirty years..............

James Brannigan, the only surviving guard, was one of the two the night of the shooting and confessed on his deathbed about what had happened to the boys.    As there was no way of discovering in which grave the boys now lay a headstone to their memory was placed close to one of the watchtowers.

And there it remains to this day where a mystery benefactor places a wreath of flowers about this time every year at around midnight.    An eerie sound also rings out throughout the graveyard during the same night but it is not known for whom the bell tolls..........................

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