McLorinan family burying-ground, Antrim

[Elwyn Soutter]

Hello, Elwyn.

My contact in the cemeteries department says they have no records about burials there. So it would be great if you would have a look.

As I said, Mackey graves would also be interesting. Another topic I started here, Mackey family of Antrim, has drawn a response from someone looking to place five Mackey siblings born in the 1810s and 1820s, and their father, evidently from Antrim, in the family from which Mary, Martha, and Rev. Alexander come; you might want to look at that.

I am away in Scotland at present but if you leave that with me, I’ll try and get in in the next week or so. I'll keep an eye out for any Mackey graves too.

[jnomad]

Another likely burial in the McLorinan family burying-ground, wherever that was: Eleanor Charters McLorinan, who died, a spinster, 19 November 1870, at the home of her father Henry McLorinan on Bow Lane (which was later called Castle Street; Henry died there in 1875). BNL death notice (21 November 1870) says she was his sixth daughter; I'm missing two. (Besides Eleanor, I have Elizabeth, who married John McDowell and was buried with him in the Friends' graveyard Moylinny; Martha, who died a spinster at Holywood in 1895; and Mary, see below.)

One of the daughters, Mary Simpson, who died in Stoneyford 28 September 1879, was to be taken to be buried in Antrim Churchyard (BNL death notice 30 September 1879). Does that mean the churchyard of the C of I church? That's where she was married. Perhaps that's another possibility for the family burying-ground.

One more thing: was/is there a Methodist graveyard?

[Elwyn Soutter]

Another likely burial in the McLorinan family burying-ground, wherever that was: Eleanor Charters McLorinan, who died, a spinster, 19 November 1870, at the home of her father Henry McLorinan on Bow Lane (which was later called Castle Street; Henry died there in 1875). BNL death notice (21 November 1870) says she was his sixth daughter; I'm missing two. (Besides Eleanor, I have Elizabeth, who married John McDowell and was buried with him in the Friends' graveyard Moylinny; Martha, who died a spinster at Holywood in 1895; and Mary, see below.)

One of the daughters, Mary Simpson, who died in Stoneyford 28 September 1879, was to be taken to be buried in Antrim Churchyard (BNL death notice 30 September 1879). Does that mean the churchyard of the C of I church? That's where she was married. Perhaps that's another possibility for the family burying-ground.

One more thing: was/is there a Methodist graveyard?

I don't know what was meant by Antrim churchyard. There is a small churchyard beside the COI church  but it probably only has 30 gravestones. It cannot have been the main graveyard for the area.

There was no graveyard attached to Antrim Methodist church (long closed now). Some Methodist churches did have graveyards but most used the COI or other public graveyards.

[jnomad]

Thanks, Elwyn.

When you say Methodists used the COI or other public graveyards, that seems to imply that there was a dedicated COI graveyard somewhere? Just not, anyway for a new burial in 1879, in a place that could be described as a churchyard?

I'm wondering if the widower John Simpson, who put the notice of Mary's death in the BNL, was trying to express what he had arranged about the funeral with Mary's family (probably with her sister Martha, who seems to have taken over as head of household when their father died). Perhaps she meant the churchyard where the McLorinan graves were, and he (not being from Antrim himself) assumed that could be described as Antrim churchyard.

It still looks like a live possibility that there might be a patch of McLorinan graves, maybe including Mary Simpson, in the graveyard (churchyard) of the NSP/Unitarian church.

[Elwyn Soutter]

The only COI graveyard in Antrim that I know of is the small one around the church. It doesn't look big enough to contain 400 years worth of burials. The council opened a cemetery in Moylena Rd. I am not certain when but I don't think it was there in 1879. (I can find graves from 1912 onwards so suspect that's when it opened). So I really don't know where the 1879 burial took place. I'll have a look at Antrim COI next time I am over there for Mary Simpson.

[jnomad]

Thanks again.

Genealogically speaking, the burial place of Mary Simpson is only a side interest, especially if she wasn't buried with other McLorinans. What I hoped for from what was called the McLorinan family burial ground was clues about the origins of Mary's (and others') father Henry, whose son Rev. Thomas McL was one of those explicitly said to have been buried (in 1880) in the family burial ground. The other was Margaret, widow of John McL, bridewell keeper (1795-1865), who died in 1877. I know John's father (Bernard McL, tradesman) from the certificate of his marriage to Margaret (Harkness), his second wife, in 1848. And John was of an age to be a brother of Henry, who was born c. 1789. But was he? There was also Joseph McL, woollendraper, born c. 1794, so also of an age to be a brother.

[jnomad]

Another mention of the family burial ground in a death notice for a McLorinan in Antrim: John McL, who died February 23 1882; notice in BNL the next day (posted by his brother Henry) says burial that day in the family burying ground, with location specified as Old Meeting-House Green. I think we know, from earlier in this topic, that the church called Old Meeting-House was the NSP/Unitarian church.

This John (born c. 1838) and his brother Henry (born c. 1840) were sons of John McL (c. 1795-1865), bridewell keeper, whose widow Margaret was also to be buried in the family burial ground.

And Rev. Thomas McL, son of a different Henry McL (c. 1789-1875), was also said to be buried (1880) in the family burial ground. If John, Margaret, and Rev. Thomas are all in the same patch of graves, that would surely be some reason to suppose it's the same family: it would be likely that Rev. Thomas and the younger John were cousins.

[jnomad]

A couple more McLorinan burials.

Joseph McL, woollendraper of Market Square, died 27 December 1874; BNL says his remains are to be taken for interment in Antrim Churchyard. But his widow Margaret, who died 17 June 1877, was to be buried in the family burying-ground.

[jnomad]

I learned only from response #3 here that the wife of Henry McLorinan (died 1875) was Martha Mackey. And I have become convinced only from the discussion here that they were the parents of Mary McLorinan, who married John Simpson.

Now I find on the Antrim History Forum a post from 2007: "… the wife of my Great Great Grand Father was a Mary McLorinan. Her Father was Henry of Antrim and her mother Martha Mc Key …." Signed Les Simpon — I assume a typo for Simpson. Posting as wessexblue; evidently living in England. No posts since by wessexblue; he seems to have joined just in order to post on a thread about John McLorinan the bridewell keeper.

So in 2007 there were descendants of Mary Simpson who knew the facts about her parentage that I have only laboriously learned from the discussion here.