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Around the late 1800s, the graveyard came into the jurisdiction of Belfast Rural District.  A brochure from 1912, which lists Monkstown Burial Grounds with Carnmoney and Mallusk is shown below.  Even then, the special status of Monkstown is evident.

(Note that the printed and handwritten numbers at the top of page 2 are the reference within NEELB Local Studies section and not part of the original)

Very few interments took place during the 20^th Century (see the burial register for more information).  Roddie Andrews, in his book Requiem for a Village:  A History of the Village of Monkstown, remembers the final days of the graveyard.   He writes that

“the last two people from the village to be buried in the graveyard were Sammy Currie, in March 1959 and his wife Jane the following November.  I remember the couple well, and was in their house a few times.   They lived in the end house of White Row and Sammy was a familiar sight standing at his door smoking a pipe

“I visited the old cemetery in 1981 and at that time nature was fast reclaiming it with much of the graveyard overgrown.   On a previous visit in the 1950s I recall seeing many pauper graves of complete families wiped out by the potato famine.  Only a small piece of slate marked their last resting place.   Poverty even in death!”

The burial register does not show any burial after 1953, and the closure act does not make reference to the Currie name.  

Before 1960, the graveyard passed from the Rural District of Belfast to that of Larne, who then passed it back to Newtownabbey, before it was finally closed....

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