Templecorran graveyard is the oldest graveyard in Ballycarry. The graveyard is divided into sections reflecting the periods when additions were made to it. The area closest to the church ruin and on the west and south sides of it include the earliest gravestones and burial sites, while other phases were added in 1884, 1905, 1906 and 1913. The graveyard is still in use although burials now take place in existing family plots as all land has been allotted. A new graveyard is sited about a mile away to the south-west, at Rig-na-ham along the Bridgend Road between the village and Carrickfergus. A second, smaller graveyard, is attached to the adjacent St. John’s Church, and is for the use of the Church of Ireland population in the area.

Templecorran graveyard would have been used by the families associated with the local Presbyterian congregation, which included adherents from surrounding rural districts prior to churches being established in their own localities. Families who later moved from the area and settled in Belfast, Carrickfergus, Larne and other areas are also represented at Templecorran.

The graveyard boundaries are marked on the west side by a modern wall which runs alongside the Bentra Road, by a stone wall and hedge on the south side, which divides the graveyard from the adjacent St. John’s graveyard, and by hedges on the north side and on the east side. Prior to the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 the graveyard would have been the responsibility of the Church of Ireland, but it is now administered by the Larne Borough Council.

The oldest stone in the graveyard dates to the Early Christian period and has an arc depicting the cross inside a circle. The stone has bevelled edges, which signify that it was a stone coffin lid. The stone is not, however, original to the Templecorran site, since it was unearthed by a farmer plowing a field about a mile north west of the graveyard in the early 1800s. An ancient graveyard was unearthed at the site at Lig-na-litter (inside the present Redhall Estate), but most of the stones were so broken up that they were thrown into ditches, according to the Ordnance Survey memoir of the parish. The one stone which survived in a more intact state was brought to Templecorran and placed there in an upright position. It is unclear whether it was used by a local family for a gravestone or not. No name appears on the stone, only the Early Christian engraving, and it is undoubtedly the earliest stone inside the graveyard.

When graves were being dug inside the old church ruin in the past it is said that older walls and structures were found. These are believed to have come from an earlier monastery on the site. The presence of so many graves, however, makes excavation impossible. The fields across from the site were subject to a planning application and subsequent appeal, with the Historic Monuments and Building Branch of DOENI successfully arguing that the site was so significant that it should not be developed. Development has occurred within the east side of the enclosure, and at Churchlands an archaeological excavation ahead of development found evidence of a walled ditch forming part of the line of the enclosure. Neolithic remains were also found at the same site.

Another tradition of the graveyard is that seven admirals are buried there, although these cannot all be identified today. Other naval figures known to be interred in the graveyard include Noah Dalway, a former MP for Carrickfergus in the Irish House of Commons, and Dr Philip Fletcher, another naval officer buried in a vault opposite the wing of the church ruin used by the Dalways. Beyond these names, research has not been able to establish the validity of the tradition, however. It is known that one general, Sir James Steele, is buried at Templecorran, and around fifty graves of prominent figures are marked in a historical trail.

One tradition has it that the Church of Ireland numbers were so small in the parish that when Dean Jonathan Swift had charge of Kilroot and Templecorran parish he ministered at the latter and began one sermon with the memorable words ‘Dearly beloved Roger …’ (Roger being his manservant). Certainly the community was almost entirely Scots and Presbyterian, at least until the 19th century, and the Ordnance Survey memoir would recount that ‘In character, habits, customs, and in their accent, idioms and dialect, the inhabitants of this parish as much resemble the Scotch, if not more so, than those of any others in this county … There are not, nor have there been, any others of different extraction residing in the parish, perhaps since its original colonisation by the Scottish settlers of the early part of the 17th century.’

The present ruin of Templecorran church is in the shape of a Greek cross (i.e. each of the arms is of the same length) and it has not been in use since the early 18th century. In the 1620s we know that the Scottish settlers built a church here since there is an account from 1622 outlining that the walls were ‘newly erected’ though the building was not yet roofed. At the start of the Plantation settlement there were concerns over the security of the new settlers, and the architectural evidence for this is considerably greater when we consider that the church was ringed with a series of musket loopholes, the two on the west gable still clearly visible today.

The church was built near the summit of high ground overlooking Larne Lough and leading to Forthill Plantation, and it stands in the townland of Forthill. Much of the building material for the church would appear to have been field stones or roughly dressed stones, but there is also evidence within the church of dressed stones which fulfilled functions as window surrounds or door jambs, and some of these may date back to the period of the medieval church. The building is largely intact, although there has been loss of a door arch over the years, and the walls contain heavy growth of ivy, small trees and other vegetation.

Inside the church there are a number of graves and three vaults, two of these latter having been placed in the side aisles of the church building; one by the Edmonstone family, who were founders of the modern settlement, the other by the Dalways, another early Plantation family. The third vault is for the Horsborough and Smiley family and is at the east gable of the building.

The earliest date on a gravestone in the graveyard is that of the death date of Rev. Edward Brice, first Presbyterian minister in Ireland. But although he died in 1636, the memorial stone was not erected until 1697. In the Beggs family plot a gravestone from 1698 commemorates James Beggs, while that of William Steel has the date 1684 and is now considerably faded, having been fashioned in white limestone. There are numerous graves from the 1700s, early examples including an exceptionally fine slate carved stone, complete with coat of arms, for Robert Symington, who died in November 1737 at the age of 77 years. His wife, Margaret Ramsey, died in June 1730 aged 75, while the last of their four children died in September 1747. This stone was uncovered a distance away from the church, where it had fallen face down and, along with two others, has now been placed on the south west wall inside the church to help preserve it.

The Symington stone is one of a number which have coat of arms depicted on them. Others include those of the second Presbyterian minister in the local community, Rev. Robert Cunningham, who was nephew of Rev. Robert Blair of Bangor, one of the prominent early Presbyterian ministers in Ulster. Cunningham was sent as a young man to Ulster by the Church of Scotland in 1646 and was ordained by the so-called ‘Army Presbytery’ of Covenanter regiments based in Carrickfergus during the period of the 1641 Rising. He was subsequently ejected from his pulpit by Bishop Jeremy Taylor in a new effort for conformity among Protestant clergy. Cunningham‘s gravestone is a massive red sandstone stone bearing simply the Cunningham coat of arms and no wording. Within a few feet is the gravestone of the third minister there, Rev. James Cobham.

Many of the gravestones also mention townlands or other place names, among them Muttonburn, Cairnbrock, Bellahill, and Broadisland (the old name for the area). Examples provided here detail the name of the person commemorated on the stone and the location they were from, as well as the year in which they died (although this does not always signify the year in which the stone was erected):

• John Armstrong, Muttonburn, 1891
• Jane Arthurs, Cairnbrock, 1870
• Abraham Caldwell, Bellahill, 1845
• Mary Callwell, Bellahill, 1848
• William Callwell, Broadisland, 1845
• Alexander Carson, Broadisland, 1871
• William Connor, Bellahill, 1876
• James Davison, Bellahill, 1822
• Thomas Davison, Broad Island, 1860
• Mary Graham, Beltoy, 1878
• Robert & Isabella Hay, Ballyhill, 1869 and 1915
• Edward McAlpin, Broadisland, 1839
• John McGiffin, Broadisland, 1867
• Elizabeth McKee, Forthill, 1841
• William McKee, Plantation Head, 1863
• Ellen McKee, Broadisland, 1864
• James Nelson, Blackhill, 1913
• Sarah Orr, Muttonburn, 1862
• James Orr, Forthill, 1870
• Jane Ridges, Muttonburn, 1854
• John Robinson, Beltoy, 1825
• Mary Agnes Service, Bentra, 1891
• William Hugh Snoddy, Bellahill, 1862
• William Steele, Broadisland, 1827
• Samuel and Ellen Steele, Broadisland, erected by Andrew Steele, who died in 1872
• Maria Stuart, Broadisland, 1836
• James Thompson, Lockstown, 1872
• Mary Wallace, Altahammond, 1862
• John Wallace, Altahammond, 1887
• James Wisnom, Scoutbush, 1873
• William Wisnom, Cairnbrock, 1887

It is clear from a survey of gravestones with place names that the insertion of townland or other names was mainly a 19th-century trend, and thus those stones with such names are generally found in the older sections of the graveyard.

In terms of surnames which are found in the graveyard, there are some which are no longer to be found in the district. These would include, for example, Symington, Sillyman, Simonton, Wisnom, Nickle, O’Prey, Newburn, Menair, McGiffin, Leck, Horsborough, Gembell, and Feer. Surnames taken from the memorials listed in the Ordnance Survey memoir in the 1830s, but which do not appear in the volume of Templecorran gravestone inscriptions published by the Ulster Historical Foundation in 1981, include Ackin, Black, Cocktry, Giles, McElwayne, Martin, Noteman, Ramsey, Templeton, Walker and Williams, suggesting that stones have perhaps become dislodged and might now be buried. Three stones discovered in a similar condition were taken inside the church ruins, including a finely executed Symington stone, and another which may have the surname Topham.

One of the prominent families no longer represented in the area is that of Wisnom. A number of gravestones of this family survive in the graveyard. The Wisnoms were prominent as seafarers, and some of the family also emigrated to California and are regarded as pioneers of the city of San Mateo, where they were builders. A relative, William Calwell, who lived with the Wisnoms in San Mateo for a time, later returned to Ballycarry, bringing with him ideas for houses based on what he had seen in America.

It is clear from many of the gravestones that younger members of families had moved from the area; there are a number of instances of family members in Belfast, for example, having erected stones in honour of their parents or others. The Templecorran graveyard was also clearly a burial ground for families from the surrounding districts of Magheramorne, Loughmourne, Carneal, Glynn and elsewhere, as can be gauged from some of the gravestone inscriptions mentioning place names. This is not surprising given that the Presbyterian congregation in the village was so early and attracted families from a wide area prior to churches being established more locally in their own districts.

The most ornate memorial in the graveyard is that to James Orr, Bard of Ballycarry, who was one of the most prominent of the Ulster weaver poets. Orr was born in the village in 1770 and had to flee for a time owing to his participation in the 1798 Rebellion. He was also a prominent local freemason, and his memorial, erected in 1831 some years after his death, was erected largely through the efforts of Masonic lodges and cost the sum of around £90. It depicts Masonic symbols and records that Orr was a secretary and treasurer within freemasonry. Although decaying somewhat through weathering, the memorial is still the most imposing in the graveyard. The foundation stone was laid in 1831, a short religious ceremony being conducted by Rev. William Glendy, who is interred, along with his wife, in the grounds of the nearby Old Presbyterian Church, the only graves in that location.

There are few other representations of urns and similar devices on stones within the graveyard, as is the case with the Orr monument, but in one of the sections is a small statue of an angel, commemorating a young girl from Whitehead named Nance Edna Woonton, who was three when she died in 1925, and was the daughter of a local coastguard. It is the only such statue in the graveyard. There are a few funerary urns at some graves, and several cast iron Victorian burying place markers also exist as do a very small number of recumbent stones. There are also some fine examples of the stonemasons’ craft, particularly on slate gravestones, including that of Thomas McCleery, dating back to 1776 and declaring that he died “after living in Peace and Unanimity 84 years with his brethren of men which we hope will be manifested by the Lord of Hosts”.

There are four vaults in the graveyard, three of them inside the ruins of Templecorran Church (Dalway, Horsborough/Smiley and Edmonstone/Fletcher, as already mentioned) and one on the east side of the building, erected by the Richard Gervas Ker, landlord of Redhall in the latter 18th and 19th centuries. The first person to be interred there has a memorial plaque on the west gable, and this is to Mrs. Anne Lewis of Grosvenor Square in London, a close friend of Ker, who died in March 1819 aged 61 years. Other members of the Ker family were subsequently interred inside the vault, which is locked and surrounded by an iron railing. The only plaque on the vault is to Mrs. Lewis, and no notation appears for the Ker family although several interments have taken place. David S. Ker built the adjoining St. John’s Church in 1847, which also has a graveyard attached.

The Templecorran Graveyard Project was established by the village community group in 1994 and marks significant graves in categories including Early Presbyterian, Village Life, Overseas Links, the 1798 period and the Services. Included among these are around fifty graves, many of them of wider significance such as those of Rev. Brice, James Orr and General Sir James Steele, a prominent Ulster army officer of the Second World War.

Clergymen who are marked as part of the project include Rev. John Bankhead, who was minister of the village’s Presbyterian congregation for almost 70 years, was married twice and had 22 children. The actress Talulah Bankhead was said to have been a descendant. Bankhead was a native of Clough in County Antrim and was born in 1738 and died in 1833. His son, Dr. Charles Bankhead, was personal physician to Lord Castlereagh. Among other clergymen interred in the graveyard are Rev. Thomas Bartley (Presbyterian), who was a native of County Monaghan and is buried with his three successive wives, and Rev. Moore Getty and Rev. W. G. Marsden (Non-Subscribing Presbyterian). There is at least one instance of clerics from the area who were ministers elsewhere, as is the case, for example, with Rev. Alexander McGiffin, who died weeks after being ordained to the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian congregation in Ballymena, in October 1867.

Families with overseas connections have often added the names of their relatives onto stones, among them James Hume (died in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1925), Edward Hugh and Jenny McKinty (Canada, 1910 and 1914), Thomas Service (Sydney, Australia, in 1937), and Lily Taylor (South Africa, 1902). The United States forms the bulk of overseas family members, with surnames involved including Agnew, Allen, McDowell, Orr, Pinkerton, and Wright and locations including Philadelphia, New York, Indianapolis, Chicago, San Francisco and Monroe, Washington. Others who died away from home included sailors such as Samuel McIlwain, who was lost overboard from a ship rounding Cape Horn in 1897 at the age of 28. McIlwain is one of a number of locals remembered on gravestones who were lost at sea or drowned.

The overseas theme has one of the more unique gravestones in the area, in that the memorial to James Thomson Dowlin, who died in 1944, has a large map of his native Tasmania covering the front of the stone. The gravestone of David Barry notes that he was a former President of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce; he had extensive shipping interests both in Ireland and England and was awarded the OBE for services in requisitioning ships for war service during the Great War. The Barry family is well represented in gravestones in the graveyard, another being Miss Margaret Barry who was a teacher, following the footsteps of her father, William Barry. She died in 1929. Other teachers in the graveyard include James A. Colhoun, a native of Londonderry, and Adam Turtle, who taught for a time in Canada before returning to take up position as Master in Ballycarry and marry his sweetheart.

The connection with the sea was strong among the community, and this is reflected, as has been alluded to, in a number of graves - at least ten can be identified - which make reference to men who lost their lives through drowning; surnames include Aiken, Burns, Hoy, McFerran, McMurtry, Towell, Milliken, George, Penny and O’Prey, the latter being a servant of the Earl of Belfast who drowned with four others as they made their way to the Earl’s yacht Dalriada in Belfast Lough in 1817. The large horizontal heavy slate stone was placed in the graveyard by the Earl of Belfast, presumably one of five similar stones in the province.

The memorial to the Bard of Ballycarry highlights the strong poetic influence in the area, and at least two other prominent local poets are buried at Templecorran. William James Hume was author of a famous local folksong called ‘The Muttonburn Stream’, which was recorded by the late Richard Hayward, while William Calwell was also an entrepreneur and founder of a co-operative creamery in the village. He had also lived and worked as a builder in California for some years and imported San Francisco housing designs to the area, examples of which remain in the adjacent Main Street and elsewhere. Calwell’s grave is marked by a modern Celtic cross in granite and is among the more distinctive memorials in the 1906 section of the graveyard.

Close by is the grave of the Steele family of Leafield, whose most famous member was General Sir James Steele, an army officer who served through two world wars and in peacetime. His ashes are interred there, along with those of his wife, Lady Janet Steele, and other family members. A bronze relief memorial to General Steele is located on the amenity green alongside the graveyard. The Steele inscriptions also mention family members in Australia. Other service graves include those mentioning surnames including Gillespie (Whitehead), Haveron, Kirkcaldy (Magheramorne), McMaw (Eden, Carrickfergus), and Robinson. The most poignant gravestone in the Templecorran graveyard is probably that of a family of seven, the Hutchinsons, who were originally from the village and died in the Belfast Blitz of 1941.

A modern replica gravestone in the oldest section of the graveyard commemorates James Burns, a man who was involved in the 1798 Rebellion and was known as ‘the Bombardier’ because he had charge of the rebel cannon fired at the Battle of Antrim. Burns lived an eventful life, but his most impressive claim to posterity was his decision to inscribe a cryptic code on his gravestone, substituting numbers for vowels (with 6 for w: a double u). This appeared as:

Christ 61s th2 64rd th1t sp1k2 3t

H2 t44k th2 Bre1d 1nd br1k2 3t

And 6h1t th1t 64rd d3d m1k2 3t

Th1t 52 b2132v2 1nd t1k2 3t.

This translates as a religious verse, which is included on the new stone, along with details on Burns’ life:

Christ was the word that spake it

He took the bread and brake it

And what that word did make it

That we believe and take it.

The stone in its original form can be seen alongside the much larger replica, and has a metal insert on which the inscription was placed. The smaller stone is now no longer legible and sits close to that for William Nelson, a 1798 martyr. Nelson was just 16 years old when he participated in the ill-fated Rising and he was subsequently hanged outside his widowed mother’s door for his involvement and because he refused to name his colleagues that June day who had shouldered pikes and headed for the Battle of Antrim. Two of his brothers were also involved in the rising and one of them, John, survived, and became a prominent figure in Virginia in the USA, being architect to President Thomas Jefferson and working on his home at Monticello and also the University of Virginia.

The more modern sections of the Templecorran graveyard date back to 1884, 1905, 1906 and 1913. These sections include several graves of note, including the grave of General Sir James Stuart Steele, who was the military officer who signed the 1939 mobilisation order taking the United Kingdom into the Second World War. The general was born on a nearby farm in 1894 and his ashes were interred in Ballycarry in 1975. Nearby is the grave of William Calwell, a local poet and entrepreneur who was responsible for distinctive American-style architecture in the Ballycarry area following his return from San Francisco in the early 1900s.

The Dowlin grave in the 1906 plot also emphasises a link with overseas, since it has the map of Tasmania carved on it, symbolising the homeland of the man buried there, James Thomson Dowlin, and this element of modern ‘grave art’ certainly makes the stone one of the most unique in the graveyard.

There are a number of gravestone inscriptions detailing wartime casualties, among them those of Norman Alexander Gillespie, who was with a Canadian regiment, and William James Kirkcaldy, a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Both were victims of the First World War. One of the most poignant stones in the graveyard commemorates an entire family - the Hutchinsons - who were originally from Ballycarry and who were killed in the Belfast Blitz of 1941.

The gravestone of Captain James Haveron tells little beyond the fact that the person in question was an MBE. Captain Haveron, however, won his medal for action in Liverpool during one of the blitz attacks on the city in the Second World War, during which, as a merchant naval captain, he saved many lives. Many of the gravestones in the modern section similarly tell us little about those interred beyond the most basic of details, whereas in the earlier section many stones provide much greater material for the family and local historian.

The modern section of the graveyard is much better laid out that the eastern side of the graveyard, not surprisingly, and there are tarmacadam pathways through it. Although more modern, it nevertheless contains many graves of note, and family surnames involved include Alexander, Allen, Bartley, Barry, Hall, Haveron, Hume, McNinch, Martin, Millar, Robinson, Taylor, and Turtle among them.

The Templecorran Graveyard has many graves of local and wider interest contained within. These range from United Irishmen of 1798 to an Orange Order grave carved with Orange lilies and other devices including a dove, swords, and three-runged ladder. There are also gravestones with Masonic emblems. The graveyard is generally well maintained and although some stones have suffered the ravages of time, most are clearly legible and visible. The ruins of the Templecorran Church are a central point to the graveyard, and the older graves are generally found alongside or to the east of the ruin, as well as inside. Provision of a graveyard trail and marker board for visitors has been a useful addition to the graveyard, and provides general details on the history of the area as well as the individuals whose graves are marked.

The area itself is a highly historic one and this is reflected, not surprisingly, in the graveyard, where many of those who have played a part in that history are interred. The site is highlighted from the main coast road between Carrickfergus and Larne by a brown tourist marker for Templecorran graveyard.

The graveyard attached to St John’s Church is small but contains a number of interesting graves, including that of one of the first Members of Parliament for Northern Ireland when the Belfast government was established in 1921, Robert J. McKeown, who was from Whitehead. His grave is dominated by a modern Celtic cross and sites to the east side of the site, behind the church. Rev. James Hamilton Bennett, who was a prominent rector of the Parish of Templecorran and Islandmagee, also has a memorial stone in this graveyard, where he was interred in 1915 after long service. There is also a coastguard’s grave, and those of a number of servicemen. One of the most poignant stones in the small churchyard is that commemorating four-year-old Eliza Gilmore, who died in 1858, and whose gravestone was erected through the donations of local children at Bellahill School, of which she was a pupil.

Inside St. John’s Church there is a fine memorial to John William Leopold McClintock, second son of Vice Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock, whose efforts resulted in the discovery of the fate of the Franklin Expedition in the 19th century. John William Leopold McClintock, who died in 1929, served continuously at sea during the First World War and was President of the Royal Naval College at Greenwich at the time of his death. The family have a channel in the Arctic named in honour of Vice Admiral McClintock and have lived at Redhall House, former home of successively the Edmonstone, Ker, McAuley and Porritt families, since the early 1920s.

Within the village there is a series of commemorative plaques and memorials which draw attention to the historical significance of the area. On the amenity green there is a plaque in honour of James Orr, Bard of Ballycarry, detailing his life and times, while nearby is a plaque commemorating Rev. Edward Brice of Stirlingshire, first Presbyterian minister in Ireland, which was unveiled in 1993 by one of his successors in Drymen, Rev. John Hay, and placed by the local Community Association. The group was also responsible for a large bas relief bronze monument in honour of General Sir James Steele on the green. The large plaque details his service career and the offices which he held and was unveiled by the GOC for Northern Ireland, General Sir Roger Wheeler, in the 1990s. At the Ballycarry Primary School wall there is a plaque commemorating American GI troops who were stationed at the adjacent Redhall army camp during the Second World War; the camp was also host to English and Belgian troops at different points of the war.

The local community group currently plans a war memorial to mark those who gave their lives in two world wars. It is intended to locate this memorial on the village amenity green, beside the General Steele memorial. The men who will be commemorated in this monument include: David Barry, Canadian Mounted Rifles, Harry Creighton, Merchant Navy, Norman Alexander Gillespie, Canadian Highlanders, William James Kirkcaldy, Royal Army Medical Corps, Richard McMaw, Royal Navy, William Robinson, army (all WWI), and William Thomas Clark Adair, Merchant Navy, Jock Craig, army, Samuel C. Delaney, Royal Artillery, William James Delaney, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, Thomas Gettingby, Merchant Navy, John Gracey, Merchant Navy, Edward Heggan, Merchant Navy, John Kane, Merchant Navy, Herbert Alexander McNinch, Merchant Navy, Wing Commander McMullan, Royal Air Force, Captain John Teare, Merchant Navy, and William, Sarah, Lily, Sadie, Rita, Martin and May Hutchinson (all WWII).

• Ordnance Survey Memoirs for County Antrim, Glynn, Inver, Kilroot and Templecorran, vol. 26 (Institute of Irish Studies, Belfast, 1994)
• Gravestone Inscriptions of County Antrim, Vol 2, Glynn Kilroot, Raloo and Templecorran (Ulster Historical Foundation, Belfast, 1981).
• The Templecorran Project. An Historic Guide to Ballycarry Old Graveyard (Ballycarry Community Association, 1994)
• Planning appeal submission by the Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch of the DoE in relation to a planning application for housing at Bridgend/Bentra Road, Ballycarry, undated.