Residents group calls for museum and memorial to Belfast's forgotten 19th century workhouse dead

Huge numbers of the city’s poor lived and died in grim conditions in a massive Donegall Road site, and it’s estimated upwards of 10,000 people are buried in a now-hidden graveyard that was once attached to the Belfast Union Workhouse.

Opened in 1841, what little is left of the workhouse for the destitute is now part of City Hospital, but for several years a local group has been calling for a memorial and museum to the thousands who passed away there.

This week, Blackstaff Residents Association renewed their call, in the wake of a Queen’s University academic coming forward with a similar idea.

Dr Robyn Atcheson’s research into the site led her to call on Belfast Council to formally mark the burial ground, stating: “So many people lived in awful conditions. They were born in Belfast, lived in Belfast, died in Belfast, and there's nothing to remember them by.”

The Blackstaff group welcomed her call, stating that last month they produced a formal proposal for a museum inside the surviving City Hospital building that would tell the story of the workhouse and its residents.

“As there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, we are writing to the Minister for Communities, Gordon Lyons, asking for his department to carry out a feasibility study into our proposals.” said Billy Dickson from the group.

"[We also ask him] to look again at listing the existing Donegall Road wall and pier, which was part of the old graveyard’s gateway.

"It might also be necessary to employ a researcher to obtain as many names as possible.

“In addition to the above, we believe Belfast City Council or Translink should place a memorial plaque at the Blythefield Park pedestrian bridge. The original wooden bridge there divided the graveyard into two sections.”

Mr Dickson revealed that the residents couldn’t make much headway with the Department for Communities (DfC) during their quest for a memorial in 2021.

They’d wanted the DfC to list the last surviving parts of the burial ground’s walls for protection, but officials concluded there wasn’t enough left of them to warrant going through with the process.

“This they said was primarily due to the loss of most of the gateway’s original fabric, namely two of the three gate piers and the gates themselves,” said Mr Dickson. “We intend to ask the Minister for Communities to have this decision reviewed.”

The Belfast Union Workhouse closed in 1948, after more than a century in operation.

Families who went in were often separated and conditions inside were known to be harsh, with long working hours and minimal food, in part to put people off using the facility as anything other than a last resort.

Disease outbreaks were a regular occurrence, resulting in the construction of a fever hospital on the site. That’s now the only remaining intact building of the Union Workhouse site, and is used as a day procedure unit by City Hospital.

The workhouse itself was demolished to make way for the hospital, and it’s believed the nearby burial ground now lies underneath a Donegall Road housing development.