Milltown Cemetery - Notable Graves

Notable Graves

Milltown Cemetery has approximately 50,000 graves within its 55-acre (220,000 m2) site. Listed below a number of graves which are of interest to tourists coming to the cemetery. Although the cemetery itself does not conduct its own official tours, there are a number of tour companies which focus their tours on around the following monuments and persons.

Harbinson Plot

William Harbinson died while interned in Belfast Prison and was buried at Portmore, Ballinderry. A Celtic cross was erected to his memory, and that of other republicans who were imprisoned in County Antrim jails, in Milltown cemetery in 1912. This plot contains the remains of 5 IRA volunteers:

• Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows, Dick Barrett, and Rory O'Connor were captured when Free State forces attacked the Four Courts in Dublin. Without charge or trial, on 8 December 1922, they were executed by firing squad. In 1924, McKelvey was re-interred in Milltown.
• Sean McCartney was shot dead by British Forces while on active service on 8 May 1921 in the Lappinduff Mountains, County Cavan. He was a member of a Belfast Flying Column which operated there.
• Terence Perry, in 1939, as part of the IRA's Expeditionary Force, volunteered for active service in England. Captured, he was imprisoned in Parkhurst Prison, where he died on 7 July 1942.
• Sean Gaffney, an IRA volunteer was imprisoned on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah, moored at Strangford Lough. On 18 November 1940, he died while still in prison.
• Seamus "Rocky" Burns, while interned, escaped from Derry jail. He was in Belfast when he was shot by RUC personnel in Castle Street. He died on 12 February 1944.

County Antrim Memorial Plot

Unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the plot honours the county's republican dead. 34 IRA volunteers who died while involved in paramilitary activity during the late 1960s and early 1970s are buried there.

New Republican Plot

In 1972, the National Graves Association purchased the ground which would become the New Republican Plot, the first burials here took place in July of that year. This plot contains the remains of 77 IRA Volunteers who have died on Active Service or as a result of imprisonment or assassination, not only in Belfast but those killed as far away as Gibraltar. Here are buried those volunteers who died as a result of hunger striking.

Winifred Carney Grave

Winifred Carney, a lifelong socialist died on 21 November 1943, was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan. She was a comrade and secretary to Commadante James Connolly. Winifred was a combatant during the 1916 Easter Rising and was the last woman to leave the G.P.O.

Sean McCaughey Grave

INLA Plot

The INLA Plot contains the remains of ten members of the Irish National Liberation Army

Giuseppe Conlon Grave

Gerard Dillon Grave

Cathal O'Byrne