A Tale of Lurgan Gothic Multi-cache

A Tale of Lurgan Gothic – Shankill Graveyard

Directions

Arriving from the M1 Motorway
Shankill Graveyard, can be found in the town of Lurgan, approximately 300m from the town centre. The Graveyard, which is managed by Craigavon Council, opens between the hours of 8.00 am and 5.00pm Monday to Sunday from 1 April to 30 September. From 1 November to 31 March the Graveyard closes at dusk.

Note: the gates usually remain closed but during opening times the pedestrian gate is unlocked for access.

It can be reached from the M1 Motorway, by leaving the motorway at Junction 10 (Lurgan and Oxford Island) and following the sign for Lurgan along the A76. After crossing over the railway lines at Lurgan railway station, look out for the old courthouse to your right (now a bar) and beside it a curious monument with a spire.

Turn immediately right at the monument and follow the road past a children’s playground and red-roofed bungalows to the second turn on the right signed as ‘Dean’s Walk, Townland of Shankill’.

Co-ordinates for the turn-off into Dean’s Walk: N 54° 27.897 W 006° 20.432.

Looking into Dean’s Walk, at the end of the short road you can see the white façade of a house within the precincts of the Shankill Graveyard behind high ornate gates.

The co-ordinates for the entrance gate to the Graveyard are: N 54° 27.932 W 006° 20.488.

Arriving from Lurgan Railway Station
Turn left at the exit from the station and head in the direction of the town centre along William Street. At the courthouse and monument proceed as above.

Car Parking
Car parking is available near the entrance gate outside the graveyard near  N 54° 27.932 W 006° 20.488. Please do not park anywhere else along this road. Although public parking is permitted here, space is limited. Please also respect the rights and privacy of the nearby residents.

Background to a Gothic Tale

When I was young, my grandmother, who grew up in Lurgan, recounted a gothic tale of a Lurgan woman who, many years ago, was buried and ‘came back to life’ to rise from the grave and return to her family.
The story occasionally haunted me as a child through to my adult years. Was this merely a myth that my grandmother recounted to scare me or was there something more to it?

I had learned as an adult that it was not unknown for ‘deceased’ to be buried alive in a coma-like state called catalepsy, a condition occasionally accompanying illnesses and diseases such as cholera infection. There were certainly stories in vogue in the 18th and 19th of persons being ‘buried alive’ that gave rise to Edgar Allan Poe’s gothic classic of 1844, ‘Premature Burial’. There certainly appears to have been an inordinate preoccupation with the subject in the 19th Century.

After some research on the matter of a ‘resurrected’ Lurgan lady who was buried twice, I discovered that there was indeed such a case recorded in Lurgan in the early 18th Century.

In 1705, a Lurgan woman named Margorie McCall is thought to have taken ill (cholera?) and died at a relatively young age. At the time of her supposed death she was wearing a valuable ring, but her family were unable to remove it from her finger. Several of the mourners at the wake assisted in trying to remove the ring but to no avail. It was decided that the family had little choice but to allow the ring to go with the deceased to the grave.

Margorie was given a wake as was the custom, when realtives of the deceased sat vigil by the body for two or three days to ensure that that the deceased was truly dead. After the customary period of time for the wake Margorie was duly interred in Shankill Graveyard, Lurgan.

On the night of her burial the grave was visited by thieves. They were unable to remove the ring from the body’s finger, so one of the grave robbers produced a knife and tried to remove the ring by attempting to cut off the deceased’s ring finger. To the thieves’ horror the act of drawing blood ‘revived’ the body and it began to show life and rose to confront them. They understandably fled from the grave stricken with terror. Margorie, revived and in a state of confusion and panic, climbed out of the grave and began to walk home along the streets of Lurgan in her grave clothes.

Meanwhile, her husband and family were gathered together at home mourning the loss of dear Margorie when they heard a knock at the door. Margorie’s husband John – still in a state of profound grief- exclaimed, “If your mother were still alive, I’d swear that was her knock.”

On opening the door Mr McCall was confronted by his ‘deceased’ wife dressed in a shroud, and very much alive. He fainted immediately. On recovering, Mr McCall was shocked, but overcome with joy to learn that his wife had not been dead but in a coma-like state.

Many years later when her time on this earth had passed, Margorie was again interred in Shankill Graveyard. The headstone erected on the grave stated the fact that she had been buried twice and recording the date of each interment. While the original inscription is barely decipherable today, a modern slab at the base of the headstone records part of the inscription.

The headstone can be found at: N52 27.932, W006 20.546

A poem written by a Lurgan man in the latter half of the 19th Century recalls the story of Margorie McCaull (as he spells the name)

Died Once Buried Twice

There lowly beneath lonely sod,
A lady twice entombed,
Tradition has it noised abroad,
She was exhumed alive.

Her precious ring her finger bore,
From her bright wedding day;
Alas from all eyes ever lost
When buried in the clay.

But a foul thief to steal the ring,
Did cast the clay aside
And he to life did quickly bring
She who lately died.

For he should cut the finger round,
To gain the golden prize,
But when the blood flowed from the wound
She spoke and did arise.

And straight away to her home did go
In her dead robes so white;
Like a wandering spirit free from woe,
But doomed to roam at night.

And when she reached her husbands door,
She gave her well known knock
And he fell senseless to the floor,
Un-nerved by the strange shock.

Her children knew her gentle voice
And flew to her embrace;
And all the neighbours did rejoice,
But marvelled at the case.

But death at last took her away,
As he will sure take all
And not again to Judgement Day
Shall Rise Margery McCaull.

A note to Geocachers: Tread softly lest ye waken those who merely slumber beneath the sod. When reaching into dark hollows searching for a cache, beware the cold grasp from below seeking a helping hand to raise up the resting from their long sleep below where you kneel.

A Short History of Shankill Graveyard

Shankill Graveyard is located approximately three hundred metres from Lurgan town-centre and is enclosed by three housing developments and the Belfast-Dublin railway line.

It began life as a modest pre-Christian era double-ring fort, the outline of which is still discernible. A stream flows nearby. Being adjacent to a plain and a wood which opened out unto Lough Neagh and with water, food, and an ambience of peace the site was ideal for a simple church or religious foundation characteristic of the early Christian era in Ireland. It is likely that the small church, which was erected on the mound in the centre of what is now the graveyard, served as a parish church for the small community of the district.

The name Shankill – Sean cill , was and still is the name borne by the townland in which the graveyard is situated, and is from two Irish words signifying “Old Church”. The map of 1609 shows a roofless church there, so it is likely that the church was of some antiquity then. Its ruined state was likely due to the destruction of the area in the Elizabethan wars. It is highly likely that the graveyard adjoining was in contnual use from antiquity.

In 1610 under the terms of the Ulster Plantation the middle portion of Doughcoron (now called Dougher) containing 1,500 acres was granted by James the First to William Brownlow. His son William who came to Ireland at the same time received a grant of 1,000 acres to form the manor of Ballynamoney. This resulted in the combined estates occupying the middle proportion of the ancient territory then known as Clanbreasail. Included in this arrangement were ninety acres of endowed glebe land set aside for parochial use consisting of the balliboe of Shankill.

It is said that when the Brownlows arrived, in 1610, they found the churches at Shankill and Oxford Island in poor repair, yet it is likely that they were still in use for public worship. There is a possibility that during the first settling-in period of the 1620s, Shankill Church was repaired and used for both Protestant and Catholic worship given the dual roots of the Brownlow household, William having married Eleanor O'Doherty, a scion of a high-ranking Irish family.

In 1718, it was decided that a new Church of Ireland was needed. The elevated site at Lurgan Green, adjacent to the market-house, was selected. The old church was subsequently taken down and the Brownlows erected their burial vault on the site. Previously, burials in the nave of the church were most likely reserved for the Brownlows and a few leading families.

The Reverend Arthur Fforde, Rector of Shankill Parish from 1748, to his death in 1767, and cousin of the Brownlow family, had a different approach to his burial. It was a common belief among people of English descent that it was ‘unholy’ to be interred on the north side of a church - the phrase was, 'without sanctuary'. In an attempt to eradicate this belief locally, the Reverend Fforde, gave instructions in his will to be buried on the north side of the mound which once held the old church.

The barely decipherable inscription on his tombstone reads:-'The Reverend Arthur Fforde late rector of this parish, died the 24th day of December, one thousand seven hundred and sixty seven, in the sixty sixth year of his age and is interred here agreeably to the special appointment of his will, in order, as he himself expressed it, to remove that superstitious imagination which prevails among many that such part is profane and unholy.'

Gradually, people followed the late rector's lead and the north side filled up. The large horizontal memorial dedicated to the Reverend Fforde lay broken in two in the graveyard for around thirty years, the upper section resting on the original supports, the other section lying three metres away across a path leading to the rear of the Brownlow vault. The memorial was restored in 2002 and the faint the inscription on the stone can be read, particularly when a low winter sun strikes the stone following a shower of rain.

Shankill contains a great variety of impressive memorials. Those of the linen merchants and business families stand out. But so also does the toll of infant mortality engraved upon these stones - even the best-off families losing two and sometimes four children in early childhood. Wealth and heart-break engraved together.

Upwards of eleven thousand people of Shankill Parish and beyond lie buried in the local graveyard which was extended at the beginning of the 19th century. Of these are 229 people who were brought to Shankill for burial from the workhouse, in 1847, a year when the total number of local burials amounted to 492.

The Reverend W. Oulton, Curate of Shankill recorded in that year: -
1847: There were 492 burials in Shankill Graveyard, this year, of which 229 were from the workhouse. The total arising partly from the great mortality occasioned by dysentery and fever in this, as well as in neighbouring parishes, but chiefly arising from the burial here of persons from all parts of Lurgan Union who died in the work house.

The total number of people dying in Lurgan workhouse, in 1847, was 1,119,  most of whom were interred in and around the workhouse grounds in Sloan Street.

Many of the headstones in the graveyard are in need of re-erection and restoration. Some headstones appear broken beyond repair, however, many memorials remain.

The oldest headstone in the graveyard, which is over three hundred years old, is located eight paces south-west of the Brownlow vault. It commemorates the life of John Walker. The inscription on the headstone includes:-

Here Lyes An Honest Gardners Dust Who In His Calling Was Soe Just That His Great Lord Did Him Remove From Serving Here To Serve Above'.

High up on the southern slope of the mound, are some 18th century headstones, standing erect, and easily read.

How to find the cache

Please note: the co-ordinates at the top of the page are not those for the cache. They lead to a point of interest from which you follow a series of waypoints to determine the final co-ordinates

All the information required to find the cache is within the graveyard and is in plain view. The cache is hidden within the graveyard and can be found without disturbing any graves or monuments. However, to work out the final co-ordinates you will need to collect information at the following locations:

Waypoint 1
N54 27.932, W006 20.546
Let’s start with Margorie McCall. Look at the iron 'shoe' supporting the headstone on her grave. Count the number of clasps holding the front of the headstone.

Note this number as A

How many large pieces of the original headstone are visible on the restored memorial?

Note this number as B

Waypoint 2
N54 27.930, W006 20.535
The oldest headstone in the graveyard, located eight paces south-west of the Brownlow vault, commemorates the life of John Walker. The inscription includes the following words:-
‘Here Lyes An Honest Gardners Dust Who In His Calling Was Soe Just That His Great Lord Did Him Remove From Serving Here To Serve Above'.

Note the year of John Walker’s death as C

At John Walker’s feet there is an old headstone.
Note the year of the occupants death from the headstone as D.
Note that the last numeral of the year in 'D' has been interpreted as the number 7.

Waypoint 4
N54 27.943, W006 20.602
This memorial records that the Reverend Wm. Magee, Minister, Lurgan, Died 9th. July 1800. His Widow Bequeathed about £60,000 to an Irish Church Including £20,000 for the Establishment of a College. The college was to become known as Magee College, now part of the University of Ulster.

The denomination of the church receiving the legacy has two adjacent letters partially obliterated: identify the position of the damaged letters in the word (e.g. if it is the first letter, record as 1, second letter as 2 etc.).

Add the two numbers together and note the sum obtained as F

Waypoint 5
N54 27.948, W6 20.547
This is the burial ground of the Boyd family. On his death, James Boyd was known to have left £2371 to the poor of Lurgan.

From this grave stone find the following information:

Charlotte, *relict of Joseph Hall Boyd died at what age?  Note this number as G

The *relict of James Boyd died on what date in May 1842?  Note this number as H

*Relict is an old term for a widow

Waypoint 6
N54 27.932, W6 20.488
The pedestrian gate to the Graveyard has how many short gold-topped wrought iron rods?

Note this number as I

Final Question
The final question is not a waypoint as the location is fairly obvious. How many creatures are depicted on the old Reilly grave stone fixed to the West wall of the Brownlow tomb?

Note this number as J


The co-ordinates you will need to find the cache are:

N54 27.XY, W006 20.GZ

They can be found by substituting the correct numbers for letters.

Please note that Y and G are double-digit figures

A few simple calculations are now required to give you the missing figures:

X= A+B

Y= (D-C)+E+F

To complete the second half of the co-ordinates just insert G and Z.

The value of Z can be found as follows:

Z= H-(I+J)

The final co-ordinates will lead you to a point nine paces east of the cache. The cache is in a small tab-lock box and is concealed at ground level. GPS reception at the immediate location of the cache can be variable especially from late spring to autumn because of tree cover, hence the need for a few final careful paces.



Note:

The cache contains a small bell and is left  with the cache as a reference to a work by John Donne written in 1624, Meditation XVII from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.

This work, originally in prose, contains the passage which is commonly quoted today as a poem.

...No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee...

I would ask that the bell remains with the cache and is gently rung when the cache is found (discretion to be used)


Please replace the cache carefully.