Gortconny Burial Ground
As part of the NorthWord project, I submitted the following fictionalised story about the Gortconny Burial Ground, located within the boundary of Crockatinney. It is based on the records kept by the Board of Guardians in the form of meeting minutes throughout the late 19th Century. The burial site – known locally as the ‘pauper’s grave’ – is one of very few local relics of the Great Famine. The site is untouched and overgrown, but the original perimeter wall and gate remain.
The workhouse buildings stood on 6 acres to the west of Ballycastle, half a mile from its bustling civic centre.
The words BALLYCASTLE WORKHOUSE were spelled out in iron on the front gate – a gate intended on keeping people in rather than out. The entrance was flanked by two small buildings one of which was the administrative offices of the Guardians, the other being a reception ward to quarantine new admissions.
Local people were said to turn a blind eye away from the workhouse as they hurried past when coming or going from the town. Aside from sightings of the master walking a swarm of schoolboys to take the salt water in June, people were not reminded of the workhouse and they preferred it that way. Even as a topic of conversation it was avoided, lest a similar fate befall the gossiper.
Epidemics of disease washed through the workhouse population frequently, but a particular outbreak of whooping cough in the boys’ quarter had been cause for alarm, according to historical notes.
Two young boys succumbed within days of each other after labouring in isolation with the 100-days-cough. Orders had been given for the boys’ removal to the Gortconny burial site due to the contagion of their disease and owing to the fact that no relatives could be found to pay for a decent burial.
In a letter to the Guardians, the Catholic chaplain had requested the remains of Catholic inmates be swaddled in blue cloth, as opposed to burlap, so that they might be received by Saint Peter modestly dressed. The reply to the priest had been cordial – while efforts could be made there could be no guarantee, particularly since procuring blue cloth for the purpose would involve some expense – and beggars, after all, cannot be choosers.
Swaddled bodies would be carried by donkey and cart up the Rattlin Brae – so called because of the noise carts made as they were driven hard up the hill to create the impetus necessary to make it to the top.
The pauper’s burial site at Gortconny was – and is – a humble one, being the size of an acre, one rood and 20 perches. A small stone wall marked the perimeter. It wasn’t what one might expect of a graveyard – nothing more than a hole in the ground. It had been opened by one of the men from the Latch who cut the turf there in the summertime but it would be closed soon and another hole opened in its place – if a man could be found to do the labour. The digging of a hole was an expense that had to be minimised, by order of the Guardians.
The plot of ground, remote and inhospitable, had been procured by the Ballycastle Workhouse Board of Guardians for a small sum, and was chosen because of its distance from town. Such a location was necessary at a time when epidemics raged on the continent and everyone feared the next deathly wave of disease. There were no headstones at Gortconny, as they were an expense that couldn’t be spared.
The Gortconny burying ground was used up until the early 1860s. After this inmates from the workhouse were buried at the graveyard at Bonamargy in the section known as the Poor Ground.
Contact
Address
80 A Whitepark Road,
Ballycastle,
Co. Antrim,
BT54 6LP
Phone
079 3887 6837
