Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
New homes being built on ‘site of workhouse graves’
Concerns over housing scheme after hundreds buried in unmarked plot
We are not aware of licensed excavations in the last 60 years STORMONT DEPARTMENT ON DUNGANNON SITE
FEARS are growing hundreds of people could be buried in a paupers’ grave on the site of a new housing development.
Former workhouse residents were laid to rest at the six-acre plot in Co Tyrone – although the exact spot has never been officially marked out. Speculation is mounting over where the graves are after it was reported remains had been found at the site and building work had stopped. However, a planning agent said he had “not been made aware” of anything being discovered. Aidan Kelly added a field behind where 44 homes are being built at Carland Road in Dungannon has been marked as the potential location of the burial site. He said it is subject to a second planning application, for the final five houses, which includes asking for permission for an archaeological dig. Mr Kelly told the Tyrone Times: “The next site is a site where we could expect to find remains. We have to do an investigation but that hasn’t been done yet.” The workhouse housed 800 people and was built in 1842. A Southern Trust spokesman said when the building was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the South Tyrone Hospital there “does not appear to be any evidence of human remains being found”. The Department for Communities added: “We are not aware of any licensed excavations at the site of Dungannon workhouse in the last 60 years.”