Behind the Couch

Situated on Stranmillis Road, Friar’s Bush cemetery is Belfast’s oldest Christian burial site. Hidden from view behind a huge wall and the Ulster Museum, it is quite a small graveyard - roughly two acres - but is the final resting place of a deceptively large number of people. The city’s official famine site, part of it is a mass grave of over 2,000 victims of hunger and cholera. Dating back to the 13th century, it is also said to be the site of the medieval friary of St Patrick himself. Every grave tells a story; most of famine and plague, some of bloody murder and body-snatching. The entrance to the cemetery - a beautiful old arched gothic gate lodge, was built by the Marquis of Donegal in 1828. One of the first things you see as you pass through the gate is a sizable mound looming up from the earth before you. Dubbed ‘the Plaguey Pit’, this mound marks the final resting place of thousands of unfortunates who died during a major outbreak of cholera in the early 1830s. Too poor t...