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George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

Born in Dublin. A shy boy growing up, he showed great determination and self-belief in becoming a full-time writer despite a lack of success for many years. He spoke out against the First World War and against the reprisals taken after Easter Week. He also spoke up for Casement. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. He was made a Freeman of Dublin shortly before he died. His works include Arms and the Man, Back to Methuselah, Man and Superman, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, Heartbreak House, John Bull’s Other Island and The Doctor’s Dilemma. A bequest in his will to the National Gallery of Ireland allowed the purchase of many valuable pictures for the gallery. A statue of him used to be in the grounds of the Gallery.

       He was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium, London and according to the National Trust leaflet on his house, his ashes and those of his wife Charlotte were scattered throughout the garden and around his revolving writing hut at his home in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire. However one of the guides told me that both sets of ashes were mixed together on the sideboard and were mostly scattered in the rose bed beneath the Joan of Arc statue.

        Shaw’s father, George Carr Shaw, is buried in Dublin. His mother’s remains were cremated in Golders Green Crematorium.

 

Further information, location and directions to the grave are to be found in "The End - An Illustrated Guide to the Graves of Irish Writers".  Click here to order a copy of this book