Thursday 10 May 2007

Greyabbey

The churchyard at Greyabbey. This is a wonderful, really atmospheric place, in a little village at the top of the Ards Penninsula - just a few miles outside Belfast. The abbey itself is crumbling and apparently unsafe to visit, but the graveyard is also well worth a visit - many of the gravestones are very old and quite beautiful.






8 comments:

Janet said...

I'd love to meander around there for a day.

isa said...

Seems very crowded - people were dying to get in? ;-)

Mylagan said...

Hello, this is my first comment, but not my first visit here, I visit your blog as often as I can, I love your country and I like your pictures a lot, especially those last ones. I wish I was there, you make me feel jealous :)
(Sorry if I made some mistakes, I'm french and my english is not very good)

Irina said...

How old is it? It looks like it's been abandoned for a century or so.

Anonymous said...

Nice photos. I like this very much.

blueboat said...

thanks for visiting.
Mll, your English is great (much better than my French!)

blueboat said...

oh, and Irina, I'm not sure how old the churchyard is, I saw some graves from the dating 1700s (you can see a tombstone dated 1683 here http://news.webshots.com/photo/1319289358051916786OYnPmw), and as far as I know it was still in use in the latter part of the 20th century. I don't know if there have been any recent burials there.
(The abbey itself was founded in 1193.)

Kerry-Anne said...

Beautiful shots - I find graveyards really intriguing. I've been told that that's macabre, but I don't agree. I'm always fascinated by the fact that every one of the people lying there had a story. There is so much history in a graveyard, and so much to ponder on. This one looks particularly interesting.