The cemetery at Maynooth College was established in 1817 and celebrated its 200th. anniversary in 2017. In anticipation of this anniversary, the Maynooth College seminary class of 1963-1970, made up of 67 lay alumni and 30 priests, undertook the planning, promotion and financial support of a documentation and rehabilitation project in conjunction with major funding from the college authorities. The class-sponsored input included researching the history of the location and creating an accessible record of those interred in print and on the web; commissioning of heritage markers for two of the cemetery's most distinguished figures, Eoghan O'Gramhnaigh and Nicholas Callan; and contributing to the cost of repair of damaged tombs and crosses.

Interested in learning more about the cemetery?

Click here to access the Maynooth College Cemetery website.

Scroll below to read more about some notable people who are buried in the cemetery.

Perhaps the most distinguished scientist of his era, this native of the Dundalk area had a number of important electrical inventions to his credit, earning him worldwide renown. He maintained his teaching and priestly duties at Maynooth for four decades, studying and writing in science, spirituality, philosophy and theology. His legacy to international science is now widely recognised, and much of the equipment and materials used in his experiments is preserved in the college collection and museum.

These two presidents of Maynooth dominated its history in the middle decades of the 19th. century, when the college was at the height of its influence in post-Famine Ireland. Laurence Renehan (1799-1857) and Charles Russell (1812-1880) occupied the position from 1845 to 1880, for thirteen and twenty-three years respectively. Though each had his personal foibles, they were both outstanding scholars way beyond their specialisations (Scripture in Renehan's case, Ecclesiatical History in Russell's) and contributed to the development of Maynooth's physical and academic facilities, as well as to the national debate on political, social and cultural issues

Though he was on the staff of Maynooth for less than four years, and spent the remainder of his brief life in the south-western United States for the good of his health, Eoghan Ó Gramhnaigh is regarded as the most important figure in the early 20th. century revival of the Irish language. His series 'Simple Lessons in Irish' and his writings on and in the language in learned and popular journals were the key to a huge groundswell of interest in the native tongue.