The early history of Grange is obscure. The Tripartite Life of Patrick records the names of seven churches in the vicinity of the river Faughan which were founded by Ireland’s patron saint, one of which, Domhnach Cati, has been identified with Donagheady, the name of the parish in which Grange is situatded. The Tripartite Life also mentions a further church, Domhnach Mescan, where St Patrick’s brewer, Cruimthir Mescan, came from. It has been suggested that it may have been in the townland of Gortmessan near Bready and suggested it as a possible site. The old burial ground of Grange in the modern townland of Grangefoyle, adjoining Gortmessan, marks the site of a former monastic foundation of which little is known. There is no traditional date of foundation.

An inquisition held in Dungannon in 1608 noted that the ‘late abbot of Columbkille of Derry was seised of the grange of Bundiened.’ Bundiened is obviously modern Burndennet, the river that flows into the Foyle one mile south of Grange monastic site. By the middle of the thirteenth century the original Columban foundation at Derry, known as the Dub Regles or the Black Church, had adopted the rule of St Augustine. The monastery at Grange was therefore Augustinian. As the name Grange is generally used to describe a monastic farm and comes from the Old French word for barn the role of the abbey at Grange was probably to supply grain to the main abbey in Derry. A small chapel on the abbeylands would have served as the place of worship for both the monks of the monastery and the local inhabitants.

‘The Grange’ is marked on a late sixteenth-century map of Ireland. To-day, there are no remains of this monastery, which would probably have been located within the confines of the present burial ground. Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the roads of Ireland (1777) and the Post Chaise Companion (1803) mention the ruins of a church at Grange. In 1837 the ruins were described as ‘extensive’, though they are not marked on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of the area.

Undoubtedly, many of the buildings in the immediate vicinity of the graveyard were built using stones taken from the abbey ruins. It is not known when precisely the monastery at Grange finally closed, but it was almost certainly before the end of the sixteenth century. In the early seventeenth century the lands belonging to the monastery at Grange were granted by the Crown to Sir Ralph Bingley, an English army officer and land speculator. They were later purchased by Hugh Hamilton of Lisdivin, a Scottish trader in luxury foodstuffs, who was one of the wealthiest men in north-west Ulster in the early seventeenth century. In 1638 the southern portion of the former monastic lands was detached from the rest and granted to a kinsman of Hugh Hamilton, confusingly another Hugh Hamilton. This portion was named Drummeny, with the northern part continuing to be called Grange. Grange remained in Hamilton hands for the rest of the seventeenth century and for the whole of the eighteenth. In the early nineteenth century it was purchased by John Hutton of Summerhill, Co. Dublin, who leased it to Robert McCrea, about whom more will be said later. In 1693 the bishop of Derry, William King, proposed that a chapel of ease to Donagheady parish church, be built on the site of the former monastery at Grange. He suggested that the lands formerly belonging to the monastery could be purchased from the Hamiltons and used to endow the chapel. However, this proposal was never put into effect.

In pre-plantation times are area around Grange Graveyard was controlled by the O’Neills. In 1568 Turlough Luineach O’Neill built a castle at Dunnalong about a mile and a half north of Grange. This was the site of a ferry and was an important landing place for Scottish mercenary soldiers coming to fight for the Irish chieftains. In 1600, during the Nine Years War, a large force of English soldiers under the command of Sir Henry Docwra landed at Dunnalong and built an artillery fort there. Under the scheme for the plantation in Ulster, the lands in the vicinity of Grange were allocated to James Hamilton, 1st earl of Abercorn, a prominent Scottish nobleman. This particular estate was named the manor of Dunnalong and it became one of the better planted manors in Ulster. Seventeenth century documents such as the muster roll of 1630-31 and the hearth money roll of 1666 show that the manor was overwelmingly Scottish in character. This is reflected in the names found on the gravestones which are overwelmingly Scottish in origin. Very few of the names on the gravestones are native Irish in origin, an indication of the fairly small number of Gaelic families living the the townlands close to Grange graveyard.

During the eighteenth century the responsibility for maintaining Grange graveyard lay with the vestry of Donagheady parish and there are several references in the eighteenth-century vestry minutes to the burial ground. Grange was one of one two burial grounds in the parish at this time, the other being the graveyard around the Church of Ireland church in the townland of Bunowen about 5 miles away.

In the middle of the nineteenth century a new wall and arched gateway were constructed, probably using the last of the stone from the old monastery on the site. The square keystone of the arch is inscribed as follows: ‘This wall and gate | rebuilt by the | owners of ground | within | A.D. 1865’. It is not clear who these ‘owners’ actually were. Perhaps they were people who had burial rights in the graveyard. In 1929 Strabane Rural District Council began to give serious attention to Grange Graveyard. The Council had already spent some money on some general maintenance of the burial ground, but it now decided that it had to take the necessary steps to bring the graveyard under its formal control.

Under the terms of the Public Health (Ireland) Act of 1878 local authorities were able to take control of graveyards ‘not attached or contiguous to any place of worship nor situate in a private demesne’ if it was in the public interest. First of all the council had to find out who actually owned the graveyard by issuing a notice in a local newspaper. No claimant to the ownership of Grange graveyard came forward and at the Council meeting on 8 July 1930 it was agreed that William Rankin JP, Council Chairman, and Miss Ballantine, one of the councillors, should undertake to have the burial ground tidied up.

Rankin was from Creaghcor, a townland close to the graveyard and Grange was his own family’s place of sepulture. He himself was buried in Grange in April 1939. On 14 April 1931 Dr R. D. McLean, medical officer for the district of Dunnamanagh, reported to the Council that Grange graveyard was both overcrowded and neglected. He recommended that the graveyard be closed to further burials excepts where reservations had been made. The Council decided not to take any action at this time as they could not afford to provide a new graveyard for the area at this time.

In 1934 the matter of Grange Graveyard again came before the Council and on 10 July it was unanimously agreed to close it. Concerns about the lack of alternative facilities for burial in the area meant that there was some delay in issuing the closing order. However, on 10 September 1935 the Council decided to accept Robert Scott’s offer of 1½ acres for a graveyard at Mountcastle. Eventually an order was issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs that Grange Graveyard was to be closed from 1 January 1938.

Of immense value for those studying the gravyard, and in particular for locating burial plots is a map numbering each of them individually. The map, copied by R H Nolan & Co. in 1891, was based upon earlier maps of 1830 and 1865. Accompanying it is a book listing the names of the families with burial plots in Grange with numbers corresponding to those on the map. Townland locations for these families are also given.

Over 350 burial plots are marked on the map. Some of the names of families with burial plots in Grange are now unrepresented in the district. The names Bewol of Lisdiven, Crumpleton of Hawstown, McNirlin of Grange and Tolan of Drumgauty have left no trace. Some of the place names in the list are no longer in use and are a few are difficult now to identify.

The Kanes of Causeyend had burial rights in Grange. Causeyend is not a townland name and appears on no maps of the area. My own grandfather used it as the name of the portion of the main road between Derry and Strabane that ran through what used to be Drumgauty bog, close to Dunnalong Church of Ireland church. This road when the bog was cut away was an elevated causeway. Greystone where the Heasty (Hasty or Hastings) family lived is a sub-division of the townland of Gortmellan. Peter’s Hill is in the townland of Tamnabryan. Peter is an old Scottish word for packman.

Other place names are harder to identify. Peeweep Bog where the Gillespie and Fulton families lived has been lost in the mists of time. So have Eildarragh and Rusheyland where, respectively, the Love and Curry families lived. The extent of the catchment area for the graveyard is indicated by some of the townland names. A few are actually across the River Foyle in Donegal, such as St Johnstown, Maymore and Porthall, while others are from the neighbouring parishes of Glendermott and Leckpatrick. A few are even from Derry City.

This is perhaps a reflection of families originally from the parish who had moved away. For example, the Hamiltons of Maymore in Co. Donegal who possessed a burial plot in Grange were originally from the townland of Gortivea a short distance away from the graveyard. This family moved to Maymore shortly after the present writer’s great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Rolleston (the spelling he used), took over the Hamilton farm in Gortivea. The Clarkes of Porthall in Co. Donegal formerly lived in what was known as Middle Grange. In 1795 James Clarke moved across the River Foyle to Porthall, but even after his departure from Middle Grange he continued to travel to 1st Donagheady Presbyterian Church where he served as an elder. Marcus Clarke, who in the early 1870s wrote For the term of his natural life on the Australian penal settlements, was a member of this family.

There are over 300 gravestones in Grange Graveyard. Quite a number of these are either buried beneath the earth or are simple marker stones bearing no inscription. There are about 200 gravestones with inscriptions and in most cases these are decipherable without difficulty. However, on a few stones the inscription can only be partly made out. A list of the most common names found on the gravestones is given below.

As a burial site Grange probably dates back over a thousand years. While there is a local tradition of monks’ graves in the graveyard or its immediate vicinity none can now be identified. The oldest surviving gravestone in Grange graveyard commemorates Robert Granger who died in 1630. In 1617 a Robert Granger of the manor of Dunnalong was granted denizenship. This allowed him to carry out legal transactions and pass on property to an heir through a will. In a document of 20 September 1626 a Robert Granger who lived at Cloghboy in the manor of Dunnalong is mentioned. It is likely that we are dealing with the same man here. The stone features a heraldic shield bearing three stags heads indicating the status of the deceased. A further stone bears an inscription incised around the edge of the stone. It is partly buried and no name or date can now be read, though 1679 has been suggested as the date. There are a significant number of stones dating from the eighteenth century, many of which commemorate individuals who were born in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Joseph Logan died in 1760 aged 66, while John Lindsay died in 1780 aged 87. Both men had been born in the early 1690s. One wonders whether they had been born in Ireland or had been part of the large scale Scottish migration to the area in the aftermath of the Williamite war (1689-91).

In the mid-nineteenth century the freehold of Dullerton was acquired by the Bond family. The first of the family to own Dullerton seems to have been Robert Bond, a wholesale grocer and tea merchant whose business premises were in Shipquay Street, Derry. Presumably the success of his business ventures enabled him to purchase a small country estate. He died in 1875 and was buried in Grange. He was married twice and both his wives were also buried in Grange. Two sons who followed military careers are also buried in Grange. Colonel David Bond died in 1895 aged 55, while General William Dunn Bond died in 1919 aged 85. A third brother may have been Captain John Bond of the 93rd Highlanders who died in India aged 67 and who was something of a poet. At the end of the nineteenth century General William Dunn Bond carried out extensive building work on the Dullerton estate. Scribbled notes inside the cover of one of the valuation books show plans of the house and outbuildings. Notes accompanying these plans indicate that the floors of the house were oak in a herring bone pattern. The valuer added that the house had ‘generally first class fittings’. It also featured a verandah and ornamental porch. Two gate lodges survive at Dullerton: one is in ruins, the other in a mock-Tudor style, bears the date 1898. Dullerton is now farmed by Lowry Brothers.

The majority of people buried in Grange were in some way connected with farming. However, a few were involved in other business ventures as well. A salmon fishery was established here in the early nineteenth century which was owned by the Irish Society of London. The 1834 Ordnance Survey map of the area marks an ice house, fish house and fish house chimney in Cloghboy. The manager of the fishery in the 1850s was Isaac Daniel. He died in 1863 aged 63 and was buried in Grange. His daughter Mary Anne was married to James Buchanan and they lived near Tralee, Co. Kerry. According to his gravestone David Ramsay who died in 1811 aged 28 was a merchant in the city of Londonderry. Several doctors and surgeons are buried in Grange. William Nesbitt MD who died in 1825 aged 71 had been for ‘many years surgeon on the Royal Navy’. He was a member of the Nesbitt family of Cloghogle, a townland leased in freehold from the earl of Abercorn. The gravestone to Andy McCrea of Maghereagh who died in 1822 aged 22 states that he was a linen draper. The McCreas of Maghereagh were well-known in the linen business in the area. They purchased linen webs and sent them to Dublin by cart, the round trip taking a fortnight. Another McCrea family, this time of Drumgauty, the townland next to Grange, were involved in the milling business. Walter McCrea who died on 19 December 1801 aged 54 was the tenant of the mill in Drumgauty. The mill had originally been built in 1778 by Michael Cary of Prospect, but soon afterwards the lease passed to Walter McCrea.

A congregation of Reformed Presbyterians or Covenanters was formed at Bready in 1765 when William James was ordained minister. He died in 1779 aged only 38, and he was buried in Grange. A memorial bearing a Latin inscription was erected, but it cannot now be identified.

Another Reformed Presbyterian minister who was buried in Grange was the Reverend Alexander Brittin (or Britton) who died in 1846 in his sixtieth year after a ministry of just over thirty years. Brittin was from Myroe, near Limavady, Co. Londonderry, and was educated at Glasgow University. He was ordained in Bready on 1815. Brittin was extremely popular with his congregation, so much so that one member of Bready, Stewart Cooke, penned an 83 line poem in tribute to his minister:

‘Right well the pulpit he became / Twas there, yes there, he earned his fame’.

At least two and possibly three of the children of the Reverend Charles Kirk Toland are commemorated on a sandstone slab with bevelled edges. The first, William, was actually buried at Kilraghts. Several families belonging to Bready Reformed Presbyterian Church are buried in Grange. Among the most prominent was the Alexander family of Dullerton. William Stavley Alexander died in 1815 aged only eleven. He was named after the Reverend William Stavely, the most distinguished of the early Reformed Presbyterian ministers and a man who was strongly suspected, with some justification, of being involved with the United Irishmen.

Several generations of the Cooke family are buried in Grange. John Cooke died in 1810 aged 75 and his son Thomas died in 1829 aged 57. Thomas’s wife, Elizabeth Young, had predeceased him. Thomas and Elizabeth had two sons, John and Joseph, who being orphaned at an early stage in life were brought up by their mother’s uncles. One of these uncles, Joseph Young (died 1843), a bachelor, ran a shipping business in Derry. John Cooke was taken into his uncle’s firm and in 1837 he took on his brother Joseph as a clerk and apprentice with a promise of a partnership after six years. J & J Cooke became one of the principal shipping companies operating in Derry in the mid to late nineteenth century. Tens of thousands of people sailed from Derry to America on the ships owned by the Cooke brothers

Several of the inscriptions in Grange make reference to individuals from overseas. Some of these references are to individuals who died overseas. For example, William Jarvis erected a stone to the memory of his son Andrew McIntyre who was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Chicago, USA. George Love, the only son of Lindsay and Elizabeth Love of Gortivea, died in Canada in 1935, but is commemorated on a headstone in Grange.

George Clarke, a doctor in the Royal Navy, died in 1858 and was buried in the cemetery of Montpernasse in Paris. Two of the children of William Young of Cloughboy died abroad. Margaret Elizabeth was buried in Brighton in 1894, while James drowned in New Zealand in 1888. An account of the latters death has survived.

On October 9 1888, the Young’s vessel, Nellie, was wrecked seven miles off Dog Island, in Foveaux strait. During a heavy gale a sea struck the vessel, carrying away the rudder and breaking in the deck. Young, who was the ship’s master, was washed off the wreck and drowned. The other two members of the crew were rescued by the lightkeeper, who observed the incident and put off in an open boat, risking his own life in the heavy sea. The Nellie, was a fishing schooner of 12 tons register, and had been built two years previous to her loss.

Andrew Clarke of Belmont in Clonleigh parish, Co. Donegal, who lies buried in Grange had been a member of council and brigadier general of the militia forces in the island of Trinidad. There is also a monument to this man in Clonleigh parish church in Lifford. A return of 1808 lists an Andrew Clarke as an ensign in the 8th West India Regiment stationed at Orange Grove in Trinidad. Although we cannot be sure that this is the same man, it is possible that this is a reference to his early career in the West Indies.

Grange Graveyard is not a burial ground with an impressive array of funerary art and sculpture. Few of the stones have any decoration, containing simply the incised inscription. The Robert Granger stone of 1630 does feature a heraldic shield containing three stags’ heads. This is the only stone with a heraldic device or coat of arms. On a polished white headstone near the centre of the graveyard is the symbol of Presbyterianism: a burning bush and the motto Ardens sed virens. The inscription simply reads, ‘Alexander 1905’. The blue sandstone headstone to 545 Sapper J. Dougherty features a maple leaf cut in relief and an incised cross. Dougherty served with the Canadian Overseas Railway Construction Corps. He was the son of William and Jane Dougherty (nee Thompson), of Tully, New Buildings and the husband of Lizzie Dougherty, of Tamnakeery. The precise circumstances of his death are not known.

Three stones in Grange bear mortality symbols. These include a skull and crossed bones together with a bell, hourglass, coffin and spades. The three gravestones have the appearance of being the work of the one mason. On two of the stones the inscriptions have completely disappeared. On the third the date 1741 can be read and with some difficulty and a little imagination the name Hamilton is faintly discernable. A few of the stones bear the exhortation: ‘Memento mori hora fugit’ which loosely translated from the Latin means, ‘Remember you must die; time flies’. This expressed in words what mortality symbolism communicated visually.