Friar's Bush

Today I joined a walking tour of Friar's Bush cemetery, one of the oldest in Belfast.

We saw a watercolour painting of the site, created in the early 1700s, which shows rolling fields instead of the city, all the way to the river Lagan.

The earliest graves are from 1717 and there are also some 'famine graves' from around 1847. Apparently Belfast folk did have food, (just no potatoes!) but there was a vast influx of people from the countryside who were suffering from 'famine fever'. There is a mound in Friar's Bush with a stone marking the burial area of over 800 people who perished during the famine.

The photo shows a gravestone from 1811 under the friar's Bush - a hawthorn tree under which mass was reputedly said in the late 1700s. There is also a fake grave of St Patrick, planted by a resourceful worker to draw pilgrims to the cemetery! All in all a very interesting outing.