Work carried out to restore memorial stone at Workhouse graveyard in Magherafelt

It was recently cleaned and re-lettered by Derek Watterson.

In 1997 Ballinascreen Historical Society published the first of three books highlighting the history of the hospital at Magherafelt. Muriel Bell’s pioneering work on 'The Workhouse and Famine times in South Derry' was followed in 1998 by Mildred Moore’s 'The Workhouse – the final fifty years (1881-1941)' and Dorothy Fleming’s 'The Hospital Years – from 1941'.

Together these three books preserve a remarkable record of the history of the Mid-Ulster Hospital and, inspired by that research, the Society paid for, and erected, the inscribed memorial stone in the otherwise unmarked paupers’ graveyard behind the hospital in May 2002.

In the 21-year interval since its dedication at an inter-denominational service the lettering on the stone had deteriorated.

A Society spokesperson said: "Sincere thanks are due to Mr Derek Watterson for his kind restoration work. Nowadays many local people are unaware of this mostly neglected plot of ground which holds the remains of so many who have no memorial.

"The Society would encourage visitors to highlight this neglect to local public representatives and the health authority. Enclosed within these overgrown hedges lie the remains of hundreds of our ancestors.

"As detailed in the Society’s 2022 printing of the 1847 Indoor Relief Register, the 2606 admissions that year hailed from a very wide area stretching from near Kilrea to near Cookstown and from Draperstown to the Lough shore."