Irish Mummies

I recently learned that Dublin, Ireland, has some interesting mummies that can be visited. I knew about bog bodies that were discovered around the island, but I didn’t know that Dublin holds creepy bodies from ages past.

One is of a cat and rat that were trapped in an organ pipe in the 1860s at Christ Church Cathedral.

The placard reads:
Possibly our most famous residents, our cat and rat were trapped in an organ pipe in the 1860s and became mummified. They were made famous by James Joyce, when he writes in Finnegan’s Wake, “… as stuck as that cat and mouse in that tube of the Christchurch organ …”

Another is a collection of noble families that were found when their coffins naturally broke open over time under St. Michan’s Church.

Bram Stoker is thought to have visited the vaults in the crypt below St. Michan’s and possibly to have found inspiration there for at least a few of the scenes in his classic Dracula.

Sources:
Cat and Rat – Oddities of Christ Church Cathedral
St. Michan Mummies – St. Michan’s Church