St Michael's Cemetery

The burial of Catholic's even in the 1860, still depended on the local authority providing a place in the municipal Cemeteries, there being no consecrated ground available where they might bury their own dead. Father Burke, after much searching, found an open plot of about eight acres for sale on the sloping hillside of Rivilin Glen. With the help of a non- Catholic friend, he purchased the land. Which was then walled round, receiving government approval as a burial ground in August 1862.   The following month, the cornerstone of the original St Michael's Chapel at Rivilin was laid and consecrated by Bishop Cornthwaite at a ceremony, in which societies, guilds and confraternities in full regalia and bearing their banners, with pipes and drum band, who had marched from St Vincent's lined the drive to the site of the new chapel. By the summer of 1863, the entire work on the chapel and the cemetery were complete with the final cost coming to £1,400.

The chapel was blessed by Father Burke on the 26th October 1863. 

The chapel was only meant to be a temporary building and was replaced in 1877 at the cost of  £2000.

Extensive renovation work was carried out in 2005 to restore the building to it's former glory.