Arbour Hill Cemetery

PricingFreeFree for all visitors

Free entry for everyone

Entry

Free for everyone

Pricing details

Free for everyone; the hour-long guided tours on Fridays at 14:00 from April to the end of October are free and need no booking. No membership card is needed.

ParkingParking not known

The Trust's page does not say how parking is charged.

Parking details

OPW lists a car park but publishes no tariff or free statement; a reviewer notes the car park is open 08:00 to 16:00 with the cemetery. The cemetery is at the rear of the National Museum of Ireland, Collins Barracks, whose APCOA car park on Benburb Street is about 240 m away; OPW gives no bus or Luas directions (the Luas red line's Museum stop serves Collins Barracks).

Driving pin: the cemetery entrance gate from Arbour Hill road in front of the church; OPW's own pin is on the 1916 memorial inside.

About

The military cemetery at Arbour Hill, behind the National Museum of Ireland at Collins Barracks, is the last resting place of fourteen of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising, among them Patrick Pearse, James Connolly and Major John MacBride. Shot at Kilmainham Gaol, they were put into an unmarked pit and covered with quicklime, but their grave has long since been saved from obscurity: the plot lies under a low mound on a terrace before a curved memorial wall on which Michael Biggs carved the Proclamation in Irish and English, with the names of the dead and a plaque to the others killed in 1916. The adjoining church was the chapel of Arbour Hill Prison, still in use next door, and behind it lies the old cemetery with its memorials to British military personnel. Entry is free, with free guided tours on Friday afternoons from April to October. Dogs are allowed on a lead but not at the 1916 grave.

ClosedPick a day for times and prices

Today, Saturday 24 October

Arbour Hill Cemetery11:00 – 16:00

Free entry

Opening times may change at short notice.

Open all year: Monday to Friday 08:00 to 16:00, Saturday 11:00 to 16:00, Sunday 09:30 to 16:00; OPW prints no closed dates. Free guided tours of an hour run on Fridays at 14:00 from April to the end of October, meeting inside the gates, no booking needed, subject to change and weather; the last 2026 tours are on 23 and 30 October. Contact superintendent.park@opw.ie about the cemetery and phoenixparkvisitorcentre@opw.ie (01 677 0095) about tours.

Uneven walkways and appropriate footwear advised; a reviewer found full wheelchair access. No toilets or cafe. Arbour Hill Prison next door is in use and closed to visitors; the Irish UN Veterans memorial garden adjoins the cemetery.

Dogs: Pet dogs are allowed on a lead throughout the cemetery but not at the 1916 grave plot.

Photo: The 1916 leaders' grave at Arbour Hill: a lawn plot before the long memorial wall carved with the Proclamation, a cross and wreath at its centre and the tricolour on a flagpole. William Murphy, CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Easter_Rising_Memorial_at_Arbour_Hill,_Dublin_-_138963_(41725024422).jpg. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0. Resized and cropped for display; derivatives retain the source licence.