page_title: Milltown Cemetery
section_title: Graves
hierarchical_section_title: Milltown Cemetery / Graves
caption_attribution_description: English: New Republican Plot - IRA, Milltown Cemetery, West Belfast, Northern Ireland
context_page_description: Milltown Cemetery is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland.
  It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway. Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 as part of the broader provision of services for the city of Belfast's expanding Catholic population. The cemetery was an important development in the episcopal reign of Bishop Patrick Dorrian of the Diocese of Down and Connor.
  Although the cemetery's history and story is often presented as a nationalist and Irish Republican site, in fact the overwhelming majority of the approximately 200,000 of Belfast dead who are buried there were ordinary, unknown Catholics.
  Within the cemetery there are three large sections of open space, each about the size of a football pitch, designated as "poor ground". Over 80,000 people are buried in the cemetery's poor grounds, many of whom died in the flu pandemic of 1919. Since 2007, the 55-acre cemetery has undergone extensive work, reversing years of neglect.
context_section_description: 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 while engaging in paramilitary activities 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 paramilitary activities 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. It has space for 46 graves, each to accommodate four burials (allowing for a total of 184 coffins to be buried). The first burials here took place in July of that year. This plot contains the remains of 77 IRA Volunteers who have died while engaging in paramilitary activities 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 21 November 1943) was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan. In 1916 during the Easter Rising she was secretary to Commadante James Connolly and 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
caption: New Republican Plot: marker for a grave with four burials, surrounded by private memorials to those interred here
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