A Huguenot graveyard opened in 1693 by non-conformist Huguenots and restored in 1988 by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is today cared for by Dublin City Council. Huguenots were French Calvinist Protestants who constantly bickered with the Catholic majority in France from the mid 16th century. They endured the murder of 20,000 of their followers during the infamous St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572. Wars broke out between the two religious groups until Henry IV (a Huguenot himself) signed the Edict of Nantes in 1598. This did not end the persecutions which gathered momentum in the next century. A trickle of Huguenot refugees began to arrive in Ireland from about 1630 onwards. The trickle became a flood when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In Dublin they settled mostly around the Coombe district in the west city and immediately enriched the commercial and artistic life of the city with their masterly skills in banking, business, construction, weaving, textile making, goldsmithing and silversmithing. Several of their French surnames can still be found in the Dublin telephone directory.
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