Video Guide for Shankill Graveyard - Belfast

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Over 1500 years old, Shankill Graveyard where St Patrick may have founded his church. There’s a sculpture of Queen Victoria by John Cassidy in 1897. The oldest grave not destroyed in an earlier clean-up dates to 1685. Mass burials took place due to cholera and typhus epidemics. Ruins from a Watch House built by William Sayers and Israel Milliken.

Travel Video Tags for Shankill Graveyard:

Victoria memorial , William Sayers and Israel Milliken , watch house , Shankill , St Patrick , epidemics ,

Some of our other Video Guides for Belfast

• Maddens Bar
• Belfast Castle
• Springhill Art
• Queen’s University – Great Hall
• BIFHE Whiterock
• The Big Fish
• Falls Road Library
• Clifton Street Graveyard
• TGWU Building
• Royal Avenue
• Ogham Gallery
• Bookfinders
• Christian Brothers' School
• Shankill Memorial Gardens
• Connolly House – Sinn Fein
• Irish Republican Museum
• Royal Hospital Sculptures
• Clarendon Dock
• Cathedral Gardens
• First Presbyterian Church
• Failte Feirste Thiar
• College Square East
• Water Works
• Shankill and Sandy Row Murals
• Woodvale Boundary Marker

Shankill Graveyard Travel Video - Audio Transcript

Shankill Graveyard

This is reputedly one of Belfast’s most fascinating archaeological sites considering it’s over 1500 years old.

This statue of Queen Victoria who ruled over Britain and Ireland between 1837-1901 was erected by Belfast City Council and once stood in Durham Street at the Royal Jubilee Schools. Victoria is shown here as wearing a dress of Nottingham Lace while the statue itself is made from a Limestone material called Portland Stone.

John Cassidy carved it in 1897 to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee when she was 78 years old. Although originally from Slane Co. Meath Cassidy resided in Manchester for most of his life. He was actually better known for his work in churches and on war memorials.

            St Patrick supposedly to founded a church here in the V century. Evidence of ancient religious foundations here actually come in the form of an VIII century Bishop’s Crozier (Staff), now in the National Museum in Dublin.

            Shankill Graveyard was one of the main graveyards in Belfast and therefore boasts quite a few historically important graves: Sergeant John Brown who took part in the battle at Balaclava in 1854; the Baird family who established the Belfast Telegraph in 1870; the oldest dates to 1685.

            These ruins belong to the old Watch House erected in 1830 by William Sayers and Israel Milliken. In the 1800s watchmen had to stand guard against body snatchers since bodies often earned more dead than alive.

            Mass burials took place during the epidemics of cholera and typhus between the years 1832-1847. It claimed the lives of rich and poor alike.

            The gravestone of Mary Bradford from 1805 illustrates a very poetic but poignant note for everyone as an inscription reads:

Stop your foot and cast an eye, As you are now so once was I, As I am now you must be, Prepare for death and follow me.

            Finally, not so commonly known in this area is the burial place of Rev. Isaac Nelson, an Irish Patriot and Nationalist M.P. who died on the 7^th March 1885.

References

http://www.rushlightmagazine.com

http://www.ulster-scots.co.uk/docs/articles/historical/shankill.htm

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