Glasnevin Cemetery poor ground burial register, September 1917

The register for Glasnevin's 'poor ground', covering 30 September 1917. Four of those buried on 30 September (three are listed on these pages) were all interred in 'poor ground', which was reserved for those unable to pay the costs of a funeral. All four of these were children, and all four came from homes officially classed as tenements. The notorious poverty of Dublin's slums in this era went hand in hand poor sanitation and appalling infant mortality rates. While none of the children were listed as having died of malnutrition, the increased poverty of the war years may have created underlying causes - specifically malnutrition - that hastened their deaths.

Two of the four children, each listed as a 'labourers child' died from diarrhoea: two year old Bridget Clynes (Clynch) of Taylors Lane off James St, a 'labourers child' died of diarrhoea in Dr Steevens Hospital on 26 September; diarrhoea was also listed as the cause of death for two month old John James Murphy of 82 Bride Street, though the certified cause of death was 'enteritis' that had lasted 14 days. There are discrepancies between the causes of death listed in Glasnevin's registers and those that were certified. Four month old Ellen Whelan of 81 Townshend St, another 'labourers child', died of pneumonia (listed as whooping cough in the registers) on 29 September, while ten year old Peter Conroy of 24 Temple St died of in the Hardwicke Hospital on 26 September; the certified cause of death was diphteria and heart failure, but was recorded in Glasnevin's records as croup. He was listed in the burial registers as a 'soldiers child'; the outbreak of the war offered employment to many from Dublin's slums who would otherwise have been condemned to the irregular and precarious life of a general labourer, though we cannot be certain of his father's precise motivation for enlisting (Glasnevin Trust).