Locals join clean-up of Goldenbridge Cemetery after an attack by vandals
Goldenbridge Cemetery Inchicore Glasnevin Trust clean up day. Pictured are sisters Maureen and Brid Hand from The Naas Road, lend a helping hand
Goldenbridge Cemetery Inchicore Glasnevin Trust clean up day. Pictured were Catherine Byrne T.D. George McCullough Chief Executive Glasnevin Trust with Violet Balfe from Drimnagh, lend a helping hand to repair some of the damage
Goldenbridge Cemetery Inchicore Glasnevin Trust clean up day. Pictured were: Daniel Smith aged 11 with his sister Kayleigh aged 7 from Inchicore
Goldenbridge Cemetery Inchicore Glasnevin Trust clean up day. Pictured were: George McCullough CEO Glasnevin Trust with Catherine Byrne T.D. and Brian Kearns from Glasnevin Trust look at the headstone repair of Mary Anne Mullen who died on 25th February 1866
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More than 100 Inchicore residents have helped to clean up the vandalised historic Goldenbridge Cemetery in Dublin.
The volunteers helped repair some of the damage to the graves on Saturday after thugs broke 29 of the 19th-century tombstones in the two-acre, walled cemetery two weeks ago.
Many of the old tombstones could not be repaired because they were smashed into pieces.
Goldenbridge, which is the final resting place of William T. Cosgrave, has not been a fully operating cemetery in over a century. However, there are plans to open the cemetery to visitors next year and begin using it as a burial ground for local people.
Appeal
Members of the We Love Inchicore and Keogh Square community groups took part in the voluntary clean-up organised by the Glasnevin Trust.
The Inchicore Development Association and Dublin City Council are working with the trust on restoring the area.
"I am truly overwhelmed by the response we've had to our clean-up day appeal," said George McCullough, chief executive of the trust.
"Unfortunately the cemetery has been the target of destructive vandalism on a number of occasions in the past couple of years, but the turnout for today's event shows me there is still a passion for this cemetery and the history beyond its gates."
The first burial in the cemetery took place in 1828. The graveyard was the first Catholic cemetery built in Dublin after the Catholic Emancipation.