Don't Forget Me... I Wont

Throughout my weeks in Ireland, I've been to a number of places and a consistent trend I've noticed is cemeteries. Literally everywhere has a cemetery: Ardmore, the Rock of Cashel, Dublin, Dungarvan, and the list is never ending. Cemetaries are nothing new, I mean we do have them in the States. However, when you walk through them in Ireland, they never seem to be empty. I don't mean there's someone doing their morning run through the cemetery, I mean there is someone remembering a lost one, standing at the grave, delivering words or gifts. I've spoke of Irelands tragedies before and their not so forgotten/ in the past, past. What I haven't spoken about enough is their not so forgotten people. "Easter, 1916" by W.B. Yeats tells the story of the Irish nationalists that rebelled against British rule. It's one of the many poems that not only presents Irelands past but the people who made their mark on history. Some poems might be more inconspicuous, but Yeats mentions the people by name "MacDonagh and MacBride/ And Connolly and Pearse". All of these rebels are remembered in Yeat's poem just like all the other people (rebels or not) who have passed and are in a grave in a cemetery. The Irish people love their persons; dead or alive I've noticed a great respect for individuals not only in the past but now.