In  March 2022 we were delighted to partner again with the Friends of Shankill Graveyard to host three community graveyard documentation and survey  training workshops in Shankill Graveyard, Lurgan, which were facilitated by archaeologist John Tierney of Historic Graves and were attended by a mix of professional archaeologists and volunteers.

On each morning (24, 25 and 26 March) John provided an introduction to historic graveyard development, using Shankill Graveyard as an example, before training participants in the cost effective, low tech methodology he has developed as part of his Historic Graves project  to survey graveyards – including the numbering, documentation of inscriptions, photography and mapping of headstones. Following the introduction, participants were then split into pairs or groups of three and asked to practically apply the techniques they learned by documenting the graves in Shankill Graveyard on record sheets.

As a result of the efforts of the attendees over the three days, all of the marked graves in Shankill Graveyard were photographed and mapped, with the partial  inscription details taken for 168 of the 392 headstones. The records have begun to be uploaded onto John Tierney’s historic graves platform to make them publicly accessible at: https://historicgraves.com/graveyard/shankill/am-snkl