gallery graves ireland

Legend has it that the first people to the buried here were Danes, who brought soil from Scandinavia so that they could rest in their own soil. Whether true or not, locals say that the soil at Ballypriormore is sandier than elsewhere in Islandmagee. Many old gravestones are to be found in the cemetery, which is accessed along a small lane just past Ballypriormore School....

One of the mot significant prehistoric cemeteries in Europe. Despoiled by quarrying over many years, the remaining monuments consist mostly of dolmens and small passage tombs. Now under the protection of the office of Public Works, which provides a guide service during the summer months, the preservation of these remarkable stones is ensured....

The Patron Saint of Ireland was buried on Cathedral Hill in 461 AD. His grave is a place of pilgrimage on St. Patrick's Day (17 March)....

Last resting place of John Redmond, who became leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminister in 1900. He brought the Party together after it was fragmented by the scandal of Charles Stewart Parnell and his affair with Kitty O' Shea. Parnell was a charismatic leader who fought the cause of the Irish tenant farmer and Home Rule for Ireland through the Parliament at Westminister. He died in 1891, leaving a nation bitterly divided after his controversial downfall. Redmond actively rec...

A shallow bank and ditch some 270 feet in diameter encloses an earthen cairn about 50 feet in diameter and 10 feet high. Excavation of the cairn in 1980 showed the mound to have contained a stone-lined chamber with the remains of a Stone Age adult male and a child buried around 350 B. C. and accompanied by decorated Neolithic pottery....

"Glen of the Army" this is the age old home of the McDonnell's accient clan....

Twenty one burials of a similar date were identified in Professor O'Kelly's excavation of this wedge-shaped gallery grave....

This old cemetery at Ballycarry includes the ruins of Ireland's first Presbyterian Church within its boundaries, as well as the grave of the first Presbyterian minister in Ireland, Rev. Edward Brice, who died in 1636. Some 50 graves of general historical note are marked as part of the Templecorran Cemetery Project and guided tours for groups can be arranged by the Ballycarry Community Association....

'Giants's Grave', an unusually long burial Gallery built from split granite and jamb stones. Access is via a footpath beside Massforth parochial House on the Kilkeel-Newry road (A2)....

This area has strong connections with the Anglo-Norman Agnew family, and the cemetery has many stones of early families associated with the castle and surrounding areas....