Milltown Burial Records

If you are researching relatives who lived in Belfast and were Roman Catholic, then chances are you will come across Milltown Cemetery – Belfast’s largest burial ground, located deep in the West of the city.

Tom Hartley's excellent book about Milltown

Milltown is in close proximity to Belfast City Cemetery, which is owned by the Council and therefore included in this invaluable online database of interred individuals.

Milltown, however, is not owned by the Council and therefore is not included in the database. So, if you wish to do some research on the present locations of some ancestors’ burial spots, you might have to do a bit more leg-work.

Thankfully, Milltown houses an office right at its entrance where you can direct such enquiries (either in person or via telephone on +44 28 9061 3972), but they are only able to help locate graves for which you have the exact names of the persons in question, as well as the dates on which they died.

For deaths that took place more than 50 years ago, the best / free method of identifying dates of death is through the online GRONI search facility, but if you happen to be in Belfast, then you might prefer using the microfiche copies of Milltown’s burial records, which are held at PRONI under reference MIC1D/91. These records contain:

• The name of the deceased.
• The age of the deceased.
• The last address of the deceased.
• The longitude/latitude of the grave’s location.

Additional records held under MIC1D/91/4 can be cross-referenced to tell you who purchased the grave plots in the first place.

If you make the trip to Milltown, you will  find the staff quite helpful. However, even if they are able to give you the section number and approximate row in which to find the grave, faded inscriptions and overgrown grass can make this a tricky exercise. Milltown is notoriously crowded and difficult to manoeuvre around, so this process requires a bit of a patience.

My great-uncle's plaque was hidden for years at Milltown due to overgrown bushes.

So, what I would advise is that once you find the right section, look along the sides of the headstones and try to find ones with readable grave numbers. Each section is organised by lettered rows; within each row, the graves are numbered in order from left-to right, so if you are given a grave location such as WD-24, go to one of the latter rows and try to spot some Ws. This will give you a rough indicator of where to focus your search.

Copyright: Tom Hartley

If all of this sounds like tedious, time-consuming guesswork, then you are absolutely correct. Some people get lucky and have living relatives who know the location of every single grave in the family. Others, like myself, spend an hour trampling over resting places overflowing with soil, searching for the right spot, only to find an empty space where the headstone should be.

So, just be advised that if you intend to undertake some grave-searching, bring some thick boots, a notebook, and steely determination.