Belfast's oldest sacred heritage.
A journey of saving a heritage site from dereliction, damage and dominant commercial forces. We intend to provide a photographic record of the sensitive interventions by volunteers at Friar's Bush Graveyard, coordinated to date by the sterling work of Cairde na Cille (Friends of the Churchyard). We have entered into a partnership agreement with Cairde na Cille to advocate for our proposal lodged with Belfast City Council to secure this heritage site at risk for a special sustainable community driven cultural tourism project: Friar's Bush Reimagined. We intend to fully inform the public of our plans and progress and encourage you/your community to share our work, story and aspirations. Our project conceived in early 2022 and formalised by Cairde na Cille in February '23 (with the help of Development Trust NI) has involved a dedicated group beavering away at sustainable plans from autumn 2023. We registered the company limited by guarantee Friar's Bush Graveyard Cemetery Ltd and this is the organisation seeking to secure a lease on Friar's Bush Gatehouse and linked site partnerhsip agreements. This project has come under unprecedented attack from commercial operators in the city through their misleading use of the Friar's Bush Graveyard name, misleading community associations e.g "Friends of" or masquerading/trading as community organisations rather than transparenly promoting their tours and profile promotions as commercial endeavours under their own names. Some see this as exploitation of volunteers' goodwill work at the site restoring the heritage from 2023. Unfortunately the confusion created can have unintended consequences for example the delay in our proposal being dealt effectively by council since June 2025, delay in securing council backing, councillors apparently unaware of the proposal and our work and the efforts to secure this site for the long term and positive community cultural toursim hampered. This website will publicise the extent of work completed, ongoing and planned. For more information on the work, tours and events of Cairde na Cille (a social enterprise regulated by the Community Interest Regulator) at this site visit www.cairdenacille.org
Restoring heritage : Volunteering at Friar's Bush
Volunteers at Friar's Bush do not alter the built heritage, leaving stone monument works to conservation experts. Instead, our organic interventions carefully frame the evocative historical layers of Belfast sandstone, rendering the quiet passage of two millenia of history legible to modern history and heritage enthusiasts.
The three pillars.
The Past: From jungle of weeds to a respectable oasis for tours
The Present: Volunteering and Community heritage events
The Future: Plans for Repurposing the Gatehouse etc
A detailed visual catalog of ongoing work on mass graves, aisles, monuments and tombstones large and small and an overview of community events at the site, promiting anccient heritage, culture and language.
We document the multitude of works to preserve tombs, mass graves, pathways, controlling invasive briar's, surplus grasses, and taming the ivy so heritage and nature can co-exist
Giving the public knowledge of our plans showing community involvement, aspirations and a best practice model for pragmatic problem solving at a complex heritage site.
The heritage partnership.
Friar's Bush Reimagined operates in close collaboration with our sister community organization. Together, we work to protect the listed green heritage space, listed built heritage and deep historical narrative of one of Belfast's oldest landmarks.