Burial
McQuirt's memorial stone was erected in 1995 in an Anglican graveyard in Donaghcloney, where Bernard McQuirt was born in a small village some 30 miles south of Belfast. But his remains are not in this graveyard. Bernard McQuirt died in Erney Street off the Shankill Road, Belfast, 5 October 1888, and no one knew were he was buried.
In 1993 while working for the Belfast City Council (City Cemetery) Robert Burns found Bernard McQuirt's registration and burial site in a Catholic plot of the Belfast City Cemetery. As there was no gravestone Robert contacted the Sherwood Foresters Museum in England and they proposed to pay for a stone. When Robert asked for permission to erect the stone in the graveyard the Catholic Church refused him permission as the plot was a poor plot with many other remains in the grave.
Robert then approached the City Council for permission to erect the memorial stone on a wall in Erney Street (off Shankill Road) were Bernard McQuirt VC died in 1888. This was also rejected. Then Robert approached locals from Donaghcloney to erect the memorial stone in the local village square beside the World War I and World War II war memorial. This was also rejected. Finally a local Church of Ireland Minister offered Robert Burns access to the local Donaghcloney Church graveyard to erect the memorial stone. In 2000 a British Army colour party from a regiment based in Northern Ireland finally dedicated the stone in memory of Bernard McQuirt VC.
The inscription on the stone states:
Sacred to the memory of Private Bernard McQuirt VC 95th The Derbyshire Regiment who won the regiment's first VC at ROWA CENTRAL INDIA 6th January 1858 he died 5 October 1888 "NINETY - FIVE"
Read more about this topic: Bernard McQuirt
Famous quotes containing the word burial:
“I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,
And, turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“How shall my animal
Whose wizard shape I trace in the cavernous skull,
Vessel of abscesses and exultation’s shell,
Endure burial under the spelling wall....”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)