Smiley Burial Place, Larne Cemetery, Upper Cairncastle Road, Larne, Co Antrim

Smiley Burial Place, Larne Cemetery

This is an impressive and highly unconventional burial ground located within Larne Cemetery, to the east of the former Church of Ireland chapel. It was erected in April 1910 over the grave of Sir Hugh Smiley, an important local benefactor, and is constructed and designed by builder James Ferris of Larne.

The monument consists of a large basalt boulder, weighing approximately 30 tons, supported on three polished red granite balls set into the ground on a raised hump. The boulder was taken from the beach at Larne and is reputedly the largest rock ever removed in Ireland without blasting. It was undermined and then hoisted onto a powerful traction engine for conveyance from the beach to the cemetery. Sir Hugh Smiley is said to have frequently rested on this boulder after swimming in the sea at Larne.

The burial place is enclosed within a rectangular plot measuring approximately 20 metres by 10 metres, bounded by low walls of polished and moulded granite. The boundary walls are level along the short sides to east and west, but ramped in stages along the long sides to the north and south, following the gradual slope of the ground from east to west. The interior lawn and narrow grass strips to the north and south also follow this slope. The boundary walls feature an unpolished rock-faced red granite base course along the south, east, and west sides, with a square pier of polished red granite, weathered at the top, at each of the four corners.

Four memorial plaques of gunmetal or bronze are fixed to the boulder. Three of the older plaques are moulded to the uneven surface of the boulder, while the fourth and latest plaque is a flat plaque set in cement to accommodate the unevenness of the surface. The plaque on the south side commemorates Hugh Houston Smiley, who died in 1909. The plaque on the west side commemorates Elizabeth Ann Smiley, who died in 1930. The plaques on the north side commemorate, on the right, John M. Smiley who died in 1919 and Hubert Stewart Smiley who died in 1922, and on the left, Bridget Miller Mundy (née Smiley) who died in 1981.

The burial place enjoys an undisturbed setting in a well-kept cemetery, with the main central driveway of the cemetery running alongside its south side. The distinctly proportioned boundary walls provide contrast to the rugged form of the natural stone boulder, and the treatment of the memorial plaques, moulded to the shape of the rock with one exception, is a distinctive feature. It remains the most conspicuous memorial in the cemetery and is of wider importance as a rare example of a highly unconventional form of funerary monument.