City Cemetery tours to be held as part of European Heritage Open Days 2016

A guided tour exploring the lives of those buried in the City Cemetery is to be held as part of the European Heritage Open Days 2016.

Opened in 1853, the site was to be the main graveyard for everyone including wealthy and poor Protestants and Catholics, industrialists, merchants, mayors of the city, architects, surgeons, artists, tradesmen, labourers and paupers.

Derry City and Strabane District Council’s genealogist Brian Mitchell will host a guided tour on Saturday 10^th and Sunday 11^thSeptember, exploring the community burial plot.

European Heritage Open Days 2016 will see over 300 properties across Northern Ireland open their doors to the public.

The tour will feature up to forty burial places including that of those killed during a German Air Raid on Derry on Easter Tuesday in 1941, a lone German bomber who dropped several parachute mines in the vicinity of Messines Park completely demolishing two houses, the Bloody Sunday victims, the Commonwealth War Dead, the ‘Father of American music’ Stephen Collins Foster, Cecil Frances Alexander, writer of the hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and many more.

Brian Mitchell, Council’s Genealogist said:

"The City Cemetery contains so much historical information. Central to the quest of most people attempting to trace their roots is the search for a burial plot marked with or without a headstone.

"Since then it has survived through three historical periods, the Victorian, Edwardian and late-20^th century which I will discuss during the tour and can be found reflected in the cemeteries architectural designs.” 

The City Cemetery tour will last approximately two hours. It will depart from the Lone Moor Road entrance at 2.00pm.

For further details, special requirements or to book a place on the tour contact geneaology@derrystrabane.com