Phillips Memorial, Belfast City Cemetery, Falls Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT12 6DE

The Phillips Memorial is a Late Gothic style monument located in Belfast City Cemetery on the Falls Road. Dating from around 1883, it was designed by James John Phillips, a Cork-based architect who had relocated to Belfast by the 1870s and became involved with the Belfast Architectural Association. The design was approved by the Cemetery Committee on 12 June 1883.

The memorial comprises a hexagonal plan base of grey limestone, engraved with inscriptions and trefoil plaques, set upon a projecting granite plinth. Above the base sits a band of Carrera marble bearing an embossed inscription from Thessalonians 4:14: "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him". A tall pinnacle of grey limestone rises from this base, elaborately decorated with carved flowers and fruit. The pinnacle supports a square plan Carrera marble obelisk with carved gablets to each face, topped with a Carrera marble decorated style cross. A later modest granite gravestone stands to the rear facing west with the name 'Phillips' engraved upon it. The graveled plot is enclosed by low coved coping stones and square piers with squat pyramidal tops.

The monument has been described as 'eye-catching' and exemplifies the prominent memorials erected in the cemetery during the 19th century. It holds group value alongside other listed memorials in Belfast City Cemetery.

The cemetery itself was established in response to rapid population growth in Belfast during the 19th century. Existing burial grounds including Shankill graveyard, Friar's Bush graveyard, and the New Burying Ground on Clifton Street had become overcrowded, particularly following outbreaks of cholera and the Great Famine. In autumn 1865, Belfast Corporation accepted Thomas Sinclair's offer of 101 acres on the Falls Road for municipal purposes. The purchase was completed in December 1865 for £12,000 with an annual ground rent of £73 5 shillings and 4 pence. Forty-five acres were designated for the cemetery, with the remainder becoming Falls Park. The Cemetery Committee awarded the contract to design the new cemetery to William Gay of Bradford on 25 January 1867. A dispute arose with Dr Patrick Dorrian, Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, over ground reserved for Catholic burials, which could not be satisfactorily resolved. As a result, a separate Catholic cemetery, Milltown, was opened in November 1869 on the opposite side of the Falls Road. Belfast Cemetery, as agreed on 29 September 1868, opened on 1 August 1869, with the first burials occurring three days later.

James John Phillips was an architect and draughtsman with antiquarian interests; his drawings of historic monuments, including Grey Abbey in County Down, were published in the Irish Builder. From the mid-1880s to the early 1900s, he served as the preferred architect of the Methodist church in the north of Ireland. His son, James St John Phillips, trained professionally as an architect and began working with him around 1896. James John Phillips died on 7 January 1934 in his 94th year; his son died on 17 July of the previous year.