CEMETERIES WITH CACHET

THERE's no time like the present for making contingency plans for the future especially if that future looks like stretching …

THERE's no time like the present for making contingency plans for the future especially if that future looks like stretching into eternity.

The Victorians, concerned always with appearances, built themselves burial edifices of extravagant splendour - marbled mausoleums so roomy that the whole family could - and did repair to them on a Sunday afternoon to take tea. London's Highgate cemetery, elevated above the soot of London, was a favoured spot, for from there, a commercially successful family, could look down not only upon the city but also upon those whose prosperity in this world did not run to the provision of suitable accommodation for the next.

The choice of one's last resting place is important not so much to the incumbent as to those who come after, for cemeteries are places where the solitary pilgrim may be part of a larger, ghostly community. One darkening winters day, I trudged through a forest outside St Petersburg, to lay flowers on the grave of Anna Akhmatova, and found a bunch of fresh carnations in the snow. John Field's grave is also a focus for visitors: "Dead in Moscow," reads the inscription in Nemetski cemetery. Devotees of a different sort of music leave their mark upon the grave of Jim Morrison in Pere Lachaise, in Paris. Dylan Thomas lies in Laugharne (the little wooden cross facing the wrong way when I last visited) and Kierkegaard rests in the ivy clad Assisstens graveyard in Copenhagen. Poor old Mozart lies somewhere in Vienna - no one knows where exactly - while James Joyce lies in Zurich's Fluntern cemetery, close to the zoo.

Here in Ireland, you'd be in good company in Rahoon cemetery, Co Galway: Siobhan McKenna is there, as well as Sonny Bodkin, Nora Barnacle's old flame, resurrected - only to die again - as Micheal Furey in Joyce's The Dead. In Galway city, Bohermore cemetery is the last temporal home to Padraic O Conaire, Walter Macken, Lady Gregory and Lord Haw-Haw. Bohermore is so popular that it is no longer possible to book a grave site in advance: "You must be either terminally ill or dead," says caretaker Raymond Scully - in his yellow oilskins, the only brightness on a grey, Atlantic drenched day.

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The mark of a true Galwegian, though, is to be buried in Forthill cemetery. The ambience is not immediately evident: located down by the docks, there's a Statoil terminal opposite, with, a coal merchant's yard next door. Last week I surreptitiously slipped the chain on the old iron gate and took a tentative step towards the underworld. Set into the chapel wall is a skull and crossbones. Moss lies green upon vaults. Crumbling stone steps lead hither and thither, and paths, disappearing behind bushes, come sharply and appropriately - to a dead end.

FORTHILL is an atmospheric place, which had me wondering would some unseen hand have locked the gate forever against my exit. It hadn't, of course: I am, after all, from Dublin.

Your chances of finding a burial spot there are not good, but you might do better in Co Cork, where there are 400 cemeteries. Mr Bullfrog Blues himself Rory Gallagher - is buried in the city's St Oliver's cemetery; although as the oldest cemetery in the city, St Finbar's - Terence McSwiney is buried there - would rate as a five star resting place. Like many older cemeteries, there are now no new graves opened there.

In West Cork, Edith Somerville and Violet Martin, aka Ross, lie side by side in St Barrahane's cemetery in Castletownshend. Set high on a overlooking the sea, the 52 steps up the church made a stern climb, especially for the coffin bearers, until they built an other path that winds a longer, kindlier route to its destination, says local retired school teacher Malachy O'Sullivan.

Another historic burial place in Co Cork is Gougane Barra, where the Tailor and Anstey are buried - but here, too, the graves are for local people only.

The exile's toast - Bas in Eirinn - is fulfilled many times over by all those who request to be buried in Dublin's Glasnevin cemetery. They too are in good company. "My soul to God, my heart to Rome and my body to Ireland," said Daniel O'Connell, who died in Geneva but lies buried in Glasnevin. Parnell is there too, as well as Roger Casement, Owen Sheehy Skeffington, Maud Gonne and Anne Devlin. The eccentric John Philpot Curran has a whole, vault to himself, and the humble punter can still pick up one of these in Glasnevin - for around £5,000.

Requests for burial in Ireland's most historic graveyard, Clonmacnoise, have come winging in from Germany, Franc, and Japan. All to no avail, however. The old cemetery is used very rarely these days and then only by those with family connections. Even the new (1950s) cemetery is reserved for local people.

BUT what makes a cemetery congenial - apart from a good class of neighbour? An aura of peaceful contemplation must come high on the list. Trees and grassy graves will contribute to this and so too will a bit of history. The Orthodox Jewish cemetery in Dublin's Dolphin's Barn is one of the capital's oldest. Cecil Calmonson, in charge of burials there, - flipped through his register seeking Dublin's first Jewish Lord Mayor: "I hope he hasn't got up and gone," he, said, preoccupied. But no, there's the entry: Robert Briscoe, died 1969.

The Society of Friends too has a historic burial ground in Dublin Blackrock. Here, tranquillity prevails. The weathered limestone headstones are uniform in shape and size ("equal in life and in death") and each bears a simple inscription. The graves are grassed over and ancient holm oaks line the avenues. But yet again, it's not open to everybody. You may be buried here only if you are a friend or a regular attender.

Not far away, the old Dean's Grange cemetery is closed and its extension, Shanganagh, is filling up rapidly.

So what can those in search of a cemetery with cachet do in the face of such a grave (oops!) shortage of space.

If you want the graveyard of your choice, says undertaker David Fanagan, buy a plot now in one of those places where there's still space, because soon they too will be filled up.

And be prepared to go out of town. In the Dublin area, Enniskerry and Kilbride are favourite places, A few weeks ago, David Fanagan had to arrange burial in a pleasant village north of Dublin. The cost was one sixth of what it would have been in Dublin.

Perhaps there's a need for a national list of desirable burial plot vacancies, similar to lists of houses in estate agents. Why not? The accommodation of the dead, after all, has its own pleasing economy in Co Offaly, for example, responsibility for cemeteries comes under "Housing".