Look again at cemetery closures - Derry Bishops urge NI Executive

The Catholic Bishop of Derry Dr Donal McKeown and Church of Ireland Bishop of Derry & Raphoe Dr Andrew Forster have made the suggestion amid growing public calls for people to be allowed to visit their loved ones.

Cemeteries remain shut to everyone except for burials as part of efforts to control the spread of Covid-19.

On Monday dozens of local people who have relatives and loved ones interred at Derry City Cemetery held a protest opposite the locked gates, and expressed their sorrow and dismay that they could not visit the final resting place of their loved ones.

Protesters in Derry said that it made no sense to close cemeteries when public parks remained open. It has also been pointed out that cemeteries in the Republic and elsewhere remain open.

Bishop McKeown told BBC Radio Foyle this morning: “It’s important to recognise these are very fraught political decisions. We’re coming from a pastoral perspective - governments work very hard to cover the whole area of the economy and health but I think we have to give huge weight to the emotional, mental and spiritual needs of people, particularly at a time of bereavement, and especially when the last you see of a person is them being moved into an ambulance from your house; you can’t visit them in hospital; you can’t get to the funeral for one reason or another, and then you can’t even go to visit them at the grave.

“I think it’s a very, very difficult area, and even politicians are struggling to get things right here, but we would like to get some sense of logic from them as to their motivation for having this particular legislation.

“Brooke Park is open most of the day, the cemeteries are not open. That needs some explaining for people.”

Dr McKeown also stressed that the decision to close councils had nothing to do with Derry City & Strabane District Council or local councillors as it was not a decision made by the local Council but a directive from the NI Executive.

Bishop Forster meanwhile told the Breakfast programme that cemeteries where places “of memories, grief and also a place of hope and resolution” for people.

“There seems to be mixed signals when we are having parks and forest parks open at the moment and so on,” Dr Forster said, adding:

“Cemeteries are places where people tend to go in their ones and twos and we have seen a lot of wisdom in how local citizens have responded to the Covid-19 crisis and I would love the Executive to look at it again to see if there is some way it can be appropriately looked after, that cemeteries could be opened in a controlled way.”

Political parties in Northern Ireland have expressed different views on whether cemeteries should reopen, a split which has seen the First Minister in favouring a managed solution to reopen cemeteries and deputy Frist Minister Michelle O’Neill advocating they remain closed as part of the NI-wide measures to limit the spread of coronavirus.