MEMORY Lane Tours Operator Dara Barrett knows more than a thing or two about cemeteries.

His unique historic walking tours are a culmination of over a decade of work in local cemeteries and a personal fascination with the stories of those buried there. 

As Administrator at Belfast City Cemetery, and as a one-time manager of Milltown Cemetery, Dara knows both burials grounds better than most. His cemetery tours offer visitors an incisive look at the lives and legacies of those interred there.

Looking at the very foundations of our local cemeteries in the 1860s, Dara tells how the Belfast Corporation faced pressure to "open a new burial ground for all denominations" due to existing burial grounds that were at "bursting point". The rest, as they say, is history. 

Over 150 years and more than 200,000 burials since opening its gates, Belfast City Cemetery is now one of the city's tourism gems. 

"Belfast City Cemetery is a microcosm of Belfast life, with over 230,000 remains interred in its grounds," Dara says.

"These include industrialists, pioneers of education, suffragettes, men and women of both World Wars, victims of our turbulent past, victims of the Titanic, Irish speakers, poets, sportspeople, as well as the ordinary folk of Belfast."

"The Belfast City Cemetery reveals much about our social history, its citizens, and the families that built Belfast. It also captures the diversity, the complexity, and breadth of our society."

In recent years, Belfast has tapped into the dramatic story and popular image of the Titanic as part of its tourism offering. And amongst the stops on Dara's City Cemetery tour is the grave of the Titanic's first casualty, 15-year-old Samuel Scott, who died in a work accident while building the ship. 

The city has also become flooded with tourists keen to learn about our recent conflict, and to take a picture beside our now infamous peace walls, a physical marker of our sectarian divide. In exploring the North's deep-seated sectarianism, the tour brings visitors to what Dara describes as the "first peace wall" – an underground wall that divides the cemetery's Catholic and Protestant deceased. 

"Sometimes people refer to the City Cemetery as a Protestant cemetery within a Catholic area and there's a lot of truth in that," he explained.

"When this place opened, in 1869, 15 acres were allocated for Catholic burials, as well as a separate entrance known as Rossa gate, and a mortuary chapel as well.

"There is an underground wall about the depth of a grave, nine feet long, and when it was constructed in 1869 it was a cost of £480 – £50,000 in our money today.

"When it opened in 1869, the Catholic Church insisted on a number of stipulations. Bishop Patrick Dorrian insisted on knowing who was being buried there, so if you were an unbaptised child, a prostitute, a convict, you weren't going into his side of the ground. He also wanted to make sure that the grave-digging staff and administration staff were under his control, and to make sure that the soil on the ground was never removed, because it is consecrated ground."

He added: "I say that it's Belfast's first peace wall, and people will say different, but it's significant when you think about that mindset."

A dispute that centred on the enforcement of the graveyard's sectarian divide resulted in an 1869 court battle, which saw the Catholic Church win £4,000 in compensation. It then used the money to open up the nearby Milltown Cemetery, which makes up the second part of Dara's fascinating tour.  

No matter your interest, there are few better ways to connect with the past than to learn about those who have passed before. 

For more info on Memory Lane Tours click here.