Video Guide for Milltown Cemetery - Belfast

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Milltown Cemetery has since 1869 over 250,000 people interred here, Catholics and Protestants alike. Celtic crosses adorn many headstones but the cemetery made headlines for the Loyalist slaying of 3 mourners while attending the funeral of another 3 IRA personnel. Hunger strikers including Bobby Sands are buried here too along with Tom Williams.

Travel Video Tags for Milltown Cemetery:

cemetery , graveyard , Republicans , IRA , Tom Williams , Bobby Sands , Harbinson Plot , National Graves Association ,

Some of our other Video Guides for Belfast

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• Belfast Central Library
• Failte Feirste Thiar
• Harland & Wolff Cranes
• Holy Cross Church
• St Matthias’ Church
• Falls & Whiterock Murals
• Church of the Nativity
• De La Salle College
• St George’s Market
• Belfast Community Circus School
• Bar Library
• St Mary's Church Belfast
• Shankill Memorial Gardens
• The Roddy McCorley Museum
• Linen Hall Library
• Old Museum Arts Centre
• Days Hotel Belfast
• Andersonstown Murals
• Water Works
• TGWU Building
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• St Patrick’s Primary School

Milltown Cemetery Travel Video - Audio Transcript

Milltown Cemetery

The entrance to Milltown Cemetery features a large Victorian-Romanesque gateway with a large Celtic Cross adorned with biblical scenes.

            It was opened on Sunday 19^th December 1870. There is an incredible wealth of history behind it and those buried here are from a wide diversity of backgrounds and countries including Polish airmen, victims of the Belfast Blitz and two World Wars, Members of Parliament, famous journalists and many more besides.

            The cemetery is synonymous with Irish Republicanism and particularly famous during recent times for the burials of IRA personnel, the Milltown Massacre on 16 March 1988 – the public slaying of three mourners by loyalist Michael Stone and the re-internment of Tom Williams 2000.

            Not far into Milltown is a vast expanse of green space which marks the site of an unmarked grave for over 80,000 victims of the 1918 pandemic flu.

This monument was erected for all those who died in WWI and WWII.

            The National Graves Association, founded in the 1930s, has since then been tending to Republican graves. Some of the most notable ones are as follows: this first one called the Harbinson Plot after the death of the Fenian William Harbinson in 1867.

            This next one is perhaps the most recognized. It’s called the County Antrim Plot or Tom Williams Plot. Unveiled in 1966 it now lists the names of the county’s Republican dead since 1978 with currently 34 IRA members buried here.

            Other notable graves which may require some time to hunt for include Sean McCaughey 1946, Winifred Carney 1943, Eamon ‘Ned’ Trodden 1920, Murtagh McAstocker 1921, Sean O’Carroll 1920 and Gerard O’Callaghan 1942.

Just before the next one is this plot dedicated to the Redemptorist community in Belfast.

            This is the New Republican Plot purchased in 1972 by the National Graves Association. It contains the remains of 77 Republicans even those killed by the SAS in Gibraltar and some of the Hunger Strikers.

            This is another memorial to Republicans particularly those from the Socialist Party and the INLA.

            Many of the Republican graves were traditionally marked with the Red Hand of Ulster although those in private family plots are not under the care of the NGA.

References

Belfast National Graves Association

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