Umgall Church Cemetery, Umgall Road, Ballyclare, Co. Antrim

Umgall Church Cemetery is a rural cemetery of the early nineteenth century, located to the north of Umgall Road in Ballyclare, Co. Antrim. It is entered through a concave gatescreen accessed from the public road to the south.

The cemetery is laid out on a grid pattern with the ground sloping downward from the elevated older northern section to the southern side at Umgall Road. The southern part of the site remains in active use and comprises bituminous paths and twentieth-century grave markers. The northern section contains a diverse array of grave markers, many featuring decorative stone carving and cast iron railings, set within grassed areas planted with yew trees. The earliest grave markers are located in the northern part of the site, including memorials to Daniel Rea of Ballynalough (died 27 January 1817) and his wife Jean Rea, alias Williamfon (died 23 December 1816), as well as Catherine Richey (died 1816) and her husband Samuel Richey (buried 1848). These funerary artefacts demonstrate a cornucopia of varying designs and high quality craftsmanship in their execution.

The entrance gatescreen features a central opening with replacement metal gates, constructed of concave random rubble stone with walls and pillars. The central entrance pillars are of random rubble construction with random rubble plinths, pyramidal caps and ball finials; the eastern pillar displays a mason's mark on its south side and has a smaller replacement rendered ball finial. The eastern central pillar has a stepped stone style to its east and north sides. The pyramidal capping stone to the western flanking pillar has eroded significantly, while the eastern flanking pillar remains largely intact.

The site occupies the location of a medieval church recorded on the Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record (Ant 056:034), though the church's exact location is unknown. Reeves described foundations in 1847, and by 1880 O'Laverty reported that the foundations had recently been removed. The 1832 first edition Ordnance Survey map shows the graveyard outline without detail. The church building appears on the second edition map of 1857, depicted as a rectangular structure aligned east-west to the cemetery's centre and enclosed by trees, a layout repeated on the third edition map of 1902. A new burial ground and caretaker's residence was constructed by W.D.R. & R.T. Taggart in 1938. No formal date is recorded for the graveyard's establishment, though the earliest gravestones discovered during survey date to approximately 1815.