Glasnevin & the Botanic Gardens: glasshouses and the great dead
Turner's curving glasshouses, the round tower over O'Connell's grave, and a wall between them. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. National Botanic Gardens — the gate
Enter free off Botanic Road into nearly fifty acres of glasshouses and planted grounds, founded in 1795. Pick up nothing, plan nothing; just start walking the gravel toward the curved iron and glass ahead. Bring a coffee in, leave the hurry out.

2. The Turner glasshouses (the Curvilinear Range)
Richard Turner's wrought-iron Curvilinear Range — the same engineer who built the Palm House at Kew — restored to its 1840s self. Walk the full length under the glass; the heat and the smell of wet leaves change the air completely. The Palm House next door is taller and just as good.

3. The Tolka river walk
Follow the path down to the far end of the gardens, where the River Tolka forms the boundary and the planting goes wild — the rose garden, the herbaceous borders, the water. A gate in the wall here leads straight into the cemetery; that's the route.

4. O'Connell Tower, Glasnevin Cemetery
Through the wall into the largest cemetery in Ireland, and the round tower over Daniel O'Connell's crypt rises first — the tallest of its kind in the country. You can climb it on a paid tour; from the top the whole city lays out. The crypt below is open and quiet.

5. The graves of Collins, Parnell and the rest
Walk the avenues to find Michael Collins, Charles Stewart Parnell, Éamon de Valera, Maud Gonne — modern Irish history, plotted in granite. Collins's grave still gets fresh flowers daily. Don't try to see them all; pick the names that mean something to you and let the rest be.

6. Glasnevin village and the Gravediggers
Out the front gate to the village, where John Kavanagh's pub — 'the Gravediggers', open since 1833 and run by the same family — sits against the cemetery wall. A pint in the old front bar is the right way to end. Buses back to the centre stop nearby.

Glasnevin & the Botanic Gardens: glasshouses and the great dead