Milltown Cemetery

Milltown Cemetery (Irish: Reilig Bhaile an Mhuilinn) 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 and there are now approximately 200,000 of Belfast's citizens buried there.^[1] Most of those buried there are Irish Catholic. Within the cemetery there are three large sections of open space, each about the size of a football field, 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.^[2] Since 2007, the 55-acre (220,000 m²) cemetery has undergone extensive work, reversing years of neglect.^[3]

Republicanism[link]

The cemetery, located in the heart of West Belfast has become synonymous with Irish republicanism. Irish Republican Army volunteer Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike on 5 May 1981, is buried in the cemetery. Fellow hunger-strikers, Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell and Pat McGeown (who died a number of years later from ill-health brought about by the hunger strike) are also buried there. In total, 77 IRA volunteers are buried in what is known as the 'New Republican Plot', a further 34 volunteers are buried in what is known as the County Antrim Memorial Plot and which was used between 1969 and 1972.^[4] Throughout the cemetery, many more IRA volunteers are buried in family graves. These include Tom Williams, who was executed in Crumlin Road Prison on 2 September 1942. Williams' body lay in a prison grave until January 2000, when a campaign, by the National Graves Association, Belfast, to have his remains re-interred in Milltown was successful.^[5] Members of the INLA and Workers' Party are also buried there.^[2]

Milltown was the scene of the Milltown Cemetery attack on 16 March 1988, when loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone attacked a funeral, killing three mourners as IRA volunteers Dan McCann, Seán Savage and Mairéad Farrell, were being buried. All three were killed by members of the SAS at Gibraltar during Operation Flavius.

Notable Graves[link]

Milltown Cemetery has approximately 50,000 graves within its 55-acre (220,000 m²) site. Listed below a number of graves which are of significant 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.

1. Harbinson Plot
William Harbinson died while interned in Belfast Prison and was buried at Portmore, Ballinderry.^[6] 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 Al Rawdah, moored at Strangford Lough. On the 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.^[7]

2. County Antrim Memorial Plot Unveiled on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the plot honours the county’s republican dead.^[8] 34 IRA volunteers who died while involved in paramilitary activity during the late 1960s and early 1970s are buried there.

3. 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.^[7]

4. Winifred Carney Grave
Winifred Carney, a lifelong socialist died on the 21st 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.^[7]

5. Sean McCaughey Grave

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

7. Giuseppe Conlon Grave

8. Gerard Dillon Grave

9 Cathal O'Byrne

Image gallery[link]

References[link]

Coordinates: 54°35′17″N 5°58′34″W / 54.588°N 5.976°W / 54.588; -5.976

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Milltown Cemetery

Saint Matthias
Workshop of Simone Martini
Apostle
Born	1st century AD Judaea (modern-day Israel)
Died	c. 80 AD Jerusalem or in Colchis (modern-day Georgia)
Honored in	Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Churches Anglican Communion Lutheran Church
Canonized	Pre-Congregation
Feast	May 14 (Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Communion) August 9 (Eastern Orthodox Churches) February 24 (in leap years February 25) (pre-1970 General Roman Calendar, Episcopal Church, Lutheran Church)
Attributes	axe[1]
Patronage	alcoholism; carpenters; Gary, Indiana; Great Falls-Billings, Montana; smallpox; tailors

Matthias (Hebrew transliteration Mattityahu) (d. 80), according to the Acts of the Apostles, was the apostle chosen by the remaining eleven apostles to replace Judas Iscariot following Judas' betrayal of Jesus and suicide.^[2] His calling as an apostle is unique in that his appointment was not made personally by Jesus, who had already ascended to heaven, and, it was made before the descending of the Holy Spirit upon the early Church.

Biography[link]

There is no mention of a Matthias among the lists of disciples or followers of Jesus in the three synoptic gospels. According to Acts 1, in the days following the Ascension of Jesus, to the assembled disciples, who numbered about one hundred and twenty, that they nominated two men to replace Judas: Joseph called Barsabbas (also known as Justus) and Matthias. Then they prayed, "Lord, you know everyone's heart. Show us which of these two you have chosen to take over this apostolic ministry, which Judas left to go where he belongs." Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles. (Acts 1:23-26)

No further information about Matthias is to be found in the canonical New Testament. Even his name is variable: the Syriac version of Eusebius calls him throughout not Matthias but "Tolmai", not to be confused with Bartholomew (which means Son of Tolmai) who was originally one of the twelve Apostles; Clement of Alexandria says some identified him with Zacchaeus; the Clementine Recognitions identify him with Barnabas; Hilgenfeld thinks he is the same as Nathanael in the Gospel of John.

According to Nicephorus (Historia eccl., 2, 40), Matthias first preached the Gospel in Judaea, then in Aethiopia (made out to be a synonym for the region of Colchis, now in modern-day Georgia) and was crucified in Colchis. A marker placed in the ruins of the Roman fortress at Gonio (Apsaros) in the modern Georgian region of Adjara claims that Matthias is buried at that site.

The Synopsis of Dorotheus contains this tradition:

Matthias in interiore Æthiopia, ubi Hyssus maris portus et Phasis fluvius est, hominibus barbaris et carnivoris praedicavit Evangelium. Mortuus est autem in Sebastopoli, ibique prope templum Solis sepultus. ("Matthias preached the Gospel to barbarians and meat-eaters in the interior of Ethiopia, where the sea harbor of Hyssus is, at the mouth of the river Phasis. He died at Sebastopolis, and was buried there, near the Temple of the Sun.")

An extant Coptic Acts of Andrew and Matthias, places his activity similarly in "the city of the cannibals" in Aethiopia.^[3][4]

Alternatively, another tradition maintains that Matthias was stoned at Jerusalem by the Jews, and then beheaded (cf. Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire ecclesiastique des six premiers siècles, I, 406-7).

According to Hippolytus of Rome, Matthias died of old age in Jerusalem.

Clement of Alexandria observed (Stromateis vi.13.):

Not that they became apostles through being chosen for some distinguished peculiarity of nature, since also Judas was chosen along with them. But they were capable of becoming apostles on being chosen by Him who foresees even ultimate issues. Matthias, accordingly, who was not chosen along with them, on showing himself worthy of becoming an apostle, is substituted for Judas.

Writings[link]

Surviving fragments of the lost Gospel of Matthias^[5] attribute it to Matthias, but Early Church Fathers attributed it to heretical writings in the 2nd century.

Veneration[link]

The feast of Saint Matthias was included in the Roman Calendar in the 11th century and celebrated on the sixth day to the Calends of March (February 24 usually, but February 25 in leap years). Owing to the reform of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints in 1969, his feast was transferred to May 14, so as not to celebrate it in Lent but instead in Eastertide close to the Solemnity of the Ascension,^[6] the event after which the Acts of the Apostles recounts that Matthias was selected to be ranked with the Twelve Apostles.

The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates his feast on August 9.

The Church of England's Book of Common Prayer liturgy celebrates Matthias on February 24. According to the newer Common Worship liturgy, he is celebrated on May 14 with a Festival, although he may be celebrated on February 24, if desired.^[7] In the Episcopal Church as well as some in the Lutheran Church, including The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and The Lutheran Church–Canada, his feast remains on February 24.^[8] In Evangelical Lutheran Worship, used by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as well as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, the feast date for Matthias is on May 14.^[9]

It is claimed that St Matthias the Apostle's remains are interred in the abbey of St. Matthias, Trier, Germany, brought there through Empress Helena of Constantinople, mother of Emperor Constantine I (the Great). According to Greek sources, the remains of the apostle are buried in the castle of Gonio-Apsaros, Georgia.

According to old tradition, St. Matthias's Day (February 24) is said to be the luckiest day of the year. This is because Matthias was the saint who was chosen by lot to replace Judas Iscariot. It has therefore been seen as a good day on which to buy lottery tickets or to participate in activities such as that.^{[citation needed]}

Matthias is especially invoked against temptations of the flesh.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Saint Matthias

Wikisource has the text of a 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article about Matthias.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Matthias". Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.