Seagoe Cemetery, Portadown, Co. Armagh

Seagoe Cemetery is next to the Seagoe Parish Church on the outskirts of Portadown, Co. Armagh. The graveyard is the final resting place of fourteen men who died during World War Two.

The parish name of Seagoe in Co. Armagh is associated with Saint Gobhan. Today’s parish name could stem from either the Latin or Irish for Gobhan’s house. Dating back to around 540 AD, it is one of Ireland’s most ancient Christian settlements. A mound among the ruins of the old church exists where the first house of Gobhan once stood.

In its earliest days, the church or house of prayer served a large community living in the Lough Neagh lowlands between what is now Portadown and Lurgan. The early churches suffered from the violence of the 1600s as colonists fought against the native Irish.

The current church, situated across the road from Seagoe Cemetery, began life in 1816. At the time, it was a plain building but over the years a chancel was added and many improvements made.

The east window in St Mark’s Cathedral, Armagh is a copy of the one in Seagoe. The mosaic tiling in the church’s chancel comes from a Scandinavian design found on a coin buried in the crypt.