Headstones and Worms...: February 2006

City Cemetery, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Widely perceived as the 'Protestant' burial place
is City Cemetery, here in Belfast, though Catholics
do share the hollowedground. Separated by a brick
wall. Not that you'llsee it mind, it is actually built
UNDERGROUD!

Overgrown in places...

Some places just should not be vandalised...
hopefully the kid who did it will realise their
mistake as they get older.

There can't be many graveyards with a stream
flowing through them.

A few old Orange graves...

Maybe I wasn't searching too much in the drizzle,
but I thought I'd spot a lot more. The 'Republican'
Milltown Cemetery was far more overtly political.

A selection of plots...

This modern one caught my eye
only because that's the surname
of my landlord!

Here is a close up of the inscription on the grand
plot from above:

Such an old fashioned name for an institution!

Showing their age...

Note the death in America: one of the many
forced in find a new life across the Atlantic.

Sadly this vandalism looks very recent.

No point reading this one out loud ;-) Sorry!

Oh dear...the tacky Thompson family...

Note that bust in the bottom right of the grave.

Surprisingly there were very few
designed like harps, which is why
I noticed it.

War graves

As a city with such a strategic & huge
dockyard it comes as no surprise to
see so many War Graves, from those
who made the ultimate sacrifice in
the Merchant Navy. Not ones you
usually see.

These grey ones are all Merchant Navy, as
opposed to the traditional Commonwealth War
Grave white ones.

This was very sad. I've NEVER
seen one vandalised before.

Here they are mixed with the more common ones.

From the other side of the world, this caught my
eye because, give or take a year or two, I know an
old boy of the same age today, called Bill Kirby!
(The one I know if from South London mind!)

Even though a grave is a grave...

and we are all equal in death, you are never
allowed to forget that this is a place divided.
These murals were all snapped from within
the grounds of the City Cemetery, on the road
that runs down the side of it.

St. John the Evangelist Churchyard, Burgess Hill, West Sussex.

A few individual graves

I just liked the odd surname on
this one

It looked beautiful the way the moss
had grown into the lettering

If only this one could talk I think there'd be
some tales to tell...

Some panoramic snaps

Military plots

From the traditional modern
Commonwealth War Grave type..

...to this unusual individual one.

To the War Memorial across the road

Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, Northern Ireland

Milltown: famous all over the world for being the
final resting place of the Hunger Strikers, but still
very much a 'normal' working cemetery. Also
'infamous' for the Loyalist terrorist attack on an
Irish Republican funeral for the three dead volunteers
killed in Gibraltar in 1988, when three mourners
were shot dead in the 10,000 crowd.

It was a drizzly overcast day when I visited, so
the sloping hillside setting didn't look as
beautiful as I'm sure it could be.

This is a mass grave for victims of a flu epidemic.

I loved this carefully crafted grave.

A bin set on fire, still vandalism here, despite the
possibility of being kneecapped if you're anti-social
in the wrong place...(I think that all still goes on
anyway).

A few individual graves that caught my eye

This one simply because one of the girls behind the
bar at my football club is called Sally.

Ditto: one of my mates from football is a Hickey.

And a fellow fan is a Griffin as well!

The famous Irish sense of humour!

A nickname, or how he died?

Shame they never achieved their dream...

I must say I thought this one looked bloody
awful!

Traditional, and home made.

It may officially be part of the United Kingdom,
but it will ALWAYS be Ireland to many.

Where the Hunger Strikers lie

This is a National Moument, and as someone
who has always been a supporter of the Republican
cause, it is somewhere I have always wanted to
visit and pay my respects.

Irish Republican memorials

This is another Irish Republican memorial, and
shows the Troubles go back a lot further than
the most recent war than flared up in the late
sixties.

One of the splinter groups

This is the Irish National Liberation Army
memorial. It doesn't quite seem right that it's
tucked away, with that ugly corrugated iron
fence behind it.

Proud to be Irish...

Burial Grounds, Terezin, Czech Republic.

Terezin is a small town about an hour from Prague
by bus.

This is the National Cemetery is situated outside the Small Fortress,
and is the National Memorial to Jews exterminated by the
Nazis in the Second World War. The Jewish Cemetery is about
a mile from this spot.

Icredibly moving, with no name.

Inside the crematorium museum area

This is the old crematorium at the Jewish Cemetery,
and there is a small permanent exhibition on mortality
and burials in the Terezin Ghetto inside.
(There was a sign saying no photos, but I managed to
sneak these).