Carnmoney Parish Church: locations and dates of graves

And there was a time after my Father’s death, when the burial ground was not as well looked after as it ought to have been

- Rev. G C Smythe to F J Bigger, 13 November 1891.

- From the NIFHS publication Carved in Stone (1994; digital edition 2009).

- W W Houston’s drawing, as reproduced in Brian Walker’s Sentry Hill. William Wylie Houston (1887-1917; killed in action in France) was an architect from the large Houston family of Ballyearl, Belfast and Jordanstown who are prominent in Sentry Hill's archives.

- Article by F J Bigger in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, May 1909. "Ardrigh" was Bigger's house near Carnmoney.

- "Return to Mr Bigger". Reproduction from the F J Bigger Collection in Belfast Central Library is by kind permission of Libraries NI.

- Irish Historical Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 4 , September 1939 , pp. 436 - 437.

Several of these drawings must have a common origin and the earliest one is likely, but not certain, to be the most reliable. Bigger gives 1820 as an approximate date but does not give an artist’s name. The viewpoint is south and slightly west of the old church, which is aligned east-west across a considerable slope still evident today. The Houston and Sibbett drawings – if they are copies of the UJA / Ardrigh one – are not meant as exact copies, and Houston’s apparent viewpoint is distinctly different at times: see for instance the two large plinths, drawn as if he were displaced (or trying to cram everything in). Houston’s perspective is very close to that in the Clarke reproduction. Especially the squareish plinth nearest the viewer, with no headstone but half-hiding a curved stone or small monument on the north edge, should survive today. More checking is needed, but it may be near the large Gibson graves (G010/11, FG2 on the maps below). Of course headstones and masonry may have toppled or sagged downhill, or been removed or upgraded.

- Carved in Stone.

- Belfast News-letter, 26 December 1856.

- From Carved in Stone, showing how NIFHS numbered the plots. The shaded "Approx. site" indicates the old church somewhat to the east of today's church, and relatively near the old graves including the ones for my relatives. These, and the part-deciphered headstone discussed below, are not necessarily shown in the 19th century sketches, but they must have been within the artists' view, towards the church, on a slope that is now heavily overgrown and shaded by mature trees.

- From the Church map of burial plots. The Gibson, Simpson and Mathewson plots are marked with those family names, but the plot just below Mathewson, and between McK(ibbin) and Simpson, has no family name. The Steel / Caruth / Hill headstone is here (G14 on the NIFHS map).

- Some older graves in Section G with their earliest inscribed dates of deaths. Details are in Carved in Stone. There may be a surviving correlation with the Sibbett / Houston drawings, if those were based on some original observation.

- At lower left is the half-buried headstone considered below. It is 2-3 m south of the large Steel-Caruth-Hill grave (NIFHS reference G14) and surroundings, described in other NIFHS articles and on this website. The large Simpson headstone has toppled – perhaps pushed by the even larger nearby tree – and now lies across some stones which may or may not be inscribed.

Half-buried headstone below G14 and the Simpson headstone

This stone does not seem to be listed in Carved in Stone. The graves nearby on the NIFHS maps are:

G38 Simpson G46 Hughes

G39 Lewis G45 Carson

G40 Nothing G44 Carson

G43

G42

None of these can be our stone. The large Lewis stone (just hiding our stone from view in the photo above) is of later date. The age of the large obstructive tree (marked on the Church map) is of interest.

I gently cleaned and photographed this headstone with permission from the Church. The letter incisions are old and worn but fairly deep, so some of the exposed text is already legible, and a more expert treatment might recover almost every word.

Acknowledgements

I thank Rev. Andy Heber and Carnmoney Church of the Holy Evangelists (particularly its sexton, the late Harry Hamilton); Belfast Central Library (Catherine Morrow, Services Manager - Collections, Cultural Heritage); and Sandra Ardis, Rosemary Sibbett and my other NIFHS colleagues.