‘No rising column marks the spot,
Where many a victim lies.
No bell here tolls its solemn sound,
No monument here stands.’
These are the words of Robert Emmet on the Croppy Acre Memorial.
Following the defeat of the 1798 Uprising, the bodies of the republican rebels were dumped into unmarked, mass graves across the country. These graves became known as
‘Croppy Pits’ or
‘Croppy Holes’, a reference to the United Irishmen who wore their hair cropped in the style of revolutionary France.
These Irish revolutionaries often carried barley oats as a source of nutrition to sustain them in battle. Several months after a Croppy grave had been filled and covered over, barley often began to grow up and mark the spot. If barley is cut down it only comes back stronger. Though it was lost on the British, the people quickly realised the significance and barley became a defiant symbol of republicanism.
You might be surprised to learn that one such mass grave is situated in the heart of Dublin City, just off Wolfe Tone Quay. A national monument now marks the Croppy Acre, but up until very recent times, this mass patriot grave had been subjected to decades of often deliberate neglect.
Early in the 20th century, British soldiers from the nearby Royal Barracks (now the National Museum of Ireland), disgracefully erected a football pitch on the site. The pitch continued to be used by another group of soldiers, when Royal Barracks was renamed Collins Barracks and taken over by the Irish Free State in 1922.
It’s believed that upwards of 300
‘unknown republican soldiers’, members, supporters or suspected sympathisers of the United Irishmen, are buried in the Croppy Acre. Accurate records were not kept for the many mass graves across the country, and unfortunately only the names of 13 people buried here survive.
In the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, members of the United Irishmen descended on Dublin, in the hope that they could find anonymity in the city and perhaps, the chance to re-group. The rebels were pursued by the British army and by rampaging yeomanry. Those captured were tortured and hanged, often on a makeshift gallows on Carlisle (now O’Connell) Bridge. Many of those executed were thrown into Croppy Acre.
Two well known leaders of the United Irish Rebellion also rest in the Croppy Acre alongside so many of Ireland’s unknown soldiers.
Mathew Tone, the younger brother of Theobald Wolfe Tone and Bartholomew Teeling, were captured after the Battle of Ballinamuck, hanged in Provost Prison, Arbour Hill, and dumped without ceremony into the Croppy Acre.
Tone and Teeling had left Ireland for France in 1796, at a time when the British Government were attempting to suppress the United Irish Movement. Wolfe Tone arranged a commission in the French army for both men and they attempted to return to Ireland to stage a revolution that December, as part of General Hoche’s infamous failed landing in Bantry Bay.
In 1798 Tone and Teeling again returned to Ireland in the Army of General Humbert, and fought bravely during the Rebellion in Connaught. Once captured, as Irish revolutionaries serving in the French army, they were singled out for particular attention, tried for treason before a military tribunal and sentenced to death.
In a defiant address to his court martial, Bartholomew Teeling said:
“If to have been active in endeavouring to put a stop to the blood-thirsty policy of an oppressive Government has been treason, I am guilty.
“If to have endeavoured to give my native country a place among the nations of the earth was treason, then I am guilty indeed.
“If to have been active in endeavouring to remove the fangs of oppression from the head of the devoted Irish peasant was treason, I am guilty.
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Teeling was hanged on September 24 1798, followed by his comrade Mathew Tone on September 30.
The Croppy Acre, now in the care of the Office of Public Works (OPW), is currently closed to the public.This mass grave tells the story of an important chapter in our history and has unlimited potential as a historical attraction in Dublin City Centre.
The Croppy Acre must be reopened for the public to enjoy.
?¢Daithà Ã?’Riain is a Dublin based historian with a specific interest in social history and Ireland’s revolutionary period.