Friar's Bush Graveyard

Friar's Bush Graveyard is Belfast's oldest Christian burial site,[1] located on the Stranmillis Road in South Belfast. The mysterious Friar's stone in the cemetery bears the inscription AD 485.[2] The oldest headstone in the cemetery was erected to the memory of Thomas Gibson who died in 1717. During the 1800s, the cemetery was repeatedly raided by body-snatchers, including in 1823 when the bodies of a woman and a child were stolen from the graveyard, although they were later returned.[3] The cemetery is the resting place of thousands of victims of the Cholera epidemic of the 1830s and the Great Irish famine of the 1840s.[4] These people were buried in a mound dubbed 'Plaguey Hill', which is located just inside the cemetery's main gates.[5] Also located inside the graveyard's main gates is the "Pauper's Pit", which is the resting place of those too poor to afford a headstone. By the mid 19th-century, the cemetery was becoming overcrowded, and only families with burial rights were allowed to be interred,[6] and in 1869 it was replaced by Milltown Cemetery as the city's main Catholic burial site.[7] The graveyard is the resting place of the famed baker and philanthropist Bernard (Barney) Hughes who died in 1878.[8] Friar's Bush has been maintained by the Belfast City Council since 2000, having previously been owned by the Catholic Church.[9]