Milltown Cemetery (Irish: Reilig Bhaile an Mhuilinn) is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway.
History
Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 as part of the broader provision of services for the city of Belfast's expanding Catholic population. [1] The cemetery was an important development in the episcopal reign of Bishop Patrick Dorrian of the Diocese of Down and Connor. [2]
Although the cemetery's history and story is often presented as a nationalist and Irish Republican site, in fact the overwhelming majority of the approximately 200,000 of Belfast dead who are buried there were ordinary Catholics, many in unmarked graves.[3]
Within the cemetery there are three large sections of open space, each about the size of a football pitch, designated as "poor ground". Over 80,000 people are buried in the cemetery's poor grounds, many of whom died in the flu pandemic of 1919.[3] Since 2007, the 55-acre (220,000 m2) cemetery has undergone extensive work, reversing years of neglect.[4]
Republicanism
The cemetery has, for some, become synonymous with Irish republicanism. Irish Republican Army prisoner Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike on 5 May 1981, is buried in the cemetery. Fellow hunger-strikers, Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell and Pat McGeown (who died of a heart attack in 1996) are also buried there. In total, 77 IRA volunteers are buried in what is known as the 'New Republican Plot', a further 34 volunteers are buried in what is known as the County Antrim Memorial Plot and which was used between 1969 and 1972.[5] Throughout the cemetery, many more IRA volunteers are buried in family graves. These include Tom Williams, who was executed in Crumlin Road Prison on 2 September 1942. Williams' body lay in a prison grave until January 2000, when a campaign, by the National Graves Association, Belfast, to have his remains re-interred in Milltown was successful.[6] Members of the INLA, IPLO and Workers' Party are also buried there.[3]
William Harbinson died while interned in Belfast Prison and was buried at Portmore, Ballinderry. A Celtic cross was erected to his memory, and that of other republicans who were imprisoned in County Antrim jails, in Milltown cemetery in 1912. This plot contains the remains of 5 IRA volunteers:
Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett, and Rory O'Connor were captured when Free State forces attacked the Four Courts in Dublin. Without charge or trial, on 8 December 1922, they were executed by firing squad. In 1924, McKelvey was re-interred in Milltown.
Sean McCartney was shot dead while engaging in paramilitary activities on 8 May 1921 in the Lappinduff Mountains, County Cavan. He was a member of a Belfast Flying Column which operated there.
Terence Perry, in 1939, as part of the IRA's Expeditionary Force, volunteered for paramilitary activities in England. Captured, he was imprisoned in Parkhurst Prison, where he died on 7 July 1942.
Sean Gaffney, an IRA volunteer was imprisoned on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah, moored at Strangford Lough. On 18 November 1940, he died while still in prison.
Seamus "Rocky" Burns, while interned, escaped from Derry jail. He was in Belfast when he was shot by RUC personnel in Castle Street. He died on 12 February 1944.[7]
County Antrim Memorial Plot
Unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the plot honours the county's republican dead.[8] 34 IRA volunteers who died while involved in paramilitary activity during the late 1960s and early 1970s are buried there.
New Republican PlotNew Republican Plot: marker for a grave with four burials, surrounded by private memorials to those interred here
New Republican Plot
In 1972, the National Graves Association purchased the ground which would become the New Republican Plot. It has space for 46 graves, each to accommodate four burials (allowing for a total of 184 coffins to be buried). The first burials here took place in July of that year. This plot contains the remains of 77 IRA Volunteers who have died while engaging in paramilitary activities or as a result of imprisonment or assassination, not only in Belfast but those killed as far away as Gibraltar. Here are buried those volunteers who died as a result of hunger striking.[7]
Another significant section of the cemetery, facing onto the Andersonstown Road is the plot where many senior Catholic clerics, important educational, social and cultural figures in post-Partition Northern Ireland, are buried. Many of the graves are adorned with high Celtic crosses. There are over two dozen priests of the Diocese of Down and Connor buried here almost all of them with strong pastoral and familial links to West Belfast. Among the most prominent are:
Monsignor Arthur H Ryan, PP St. Brigid's, Belfast [11]
Fr John McCaughan BCL, PP St Paul's Belfast, former President St. Malachy's College, died 1939
An tAthair Roibeard Fullerton, who led the Gaelic League & Irish language revival across Ulster, inscription entirely in Irish [12]
Monsignor Dean Gerard Montague DD, PP St Paul's Belfast, died 1994 [13]
War Graves
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains and registers the graves within the cemetery of British Commonwealth service personnel, covering years 1914–21 and 1939–47. There are 102 World War I and 52 World War II graves, besides 10 foreign national servicemen. The focal point is a Cross of Sacrifice erected by the commission after World War I, near which stands a Screen Wall memorial listing those of that war whose graves could not be individually marked.[14]
Belfast Blitz Memorial
The Belfast Blitz occurred in the April and May 1941 when approximately 1,000 citizens of the city, known and unknown, perished. After the burials of those who could be identified the city authorities were left with human remains where positive identification was not possible.
It was decided to have two large 'en masse' burials, one at the City Cemetery and one at Milltown where 30 unknown people, who bore effects identifying them as Catholics, are buried. In 2012 the memorial was restored.
[15]
Image gallery
Notable graves
Harbinson Plot
County Antrim Memorial Plot
Grave of Winifred Carney, Socialist and combatant in GPO, Dublin 1916
Grave of Ned Trodden
Grave of volunteer Sean Martin
Grave of volunteer Sean Gaynor
Photograph taken prior to restoration work
Photograph of New Republican Plot
New Republican Plot. Plaque dedicated to the ten men who died on Hunger Strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981
New Republican Plot. Plaque on the grave of volunteer Bobby Sands
Grave of IRA volunteers Dan McCann, Mairead Farrell and Sean Savage who were killed in Gibraltar in 1988
Grave of volunteer Kieran Doherty who died on Hunger strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh in 1981
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