Milltown Cemetery opened in 1869 as part of the broader provision of services for the city of Belfast's expanding Catholic population.

[2] Although the cemetery's history and story is often presented as a nationalist and Irish Republican site, in fact the overwhelming majority of the approximately 200,000 of Belfast dead who are buried there were ordinary Catholics, many in unmarked graves.

Fellow hunger-strikers Kieran Doherty, Joe McDonnell and Pat McGeown (who died of a heart attack in 1996) are also buried there.

[citation needed] Winifred Carney, a lifelong socialist (died 21 November 1943) was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and Cumann na mBan.

[7] Another significant section of the cemetery, facing onto the Andersonstown Road is the plot where many senior Catholic clerics, important educational, social and cultural figures in post-Partition Northern Ireland, are buried.

It was decided to have two mass burial sites, one at the City Cemetery and one at Milltown where 30 unknown people, who bore effects identifying them as Catholics, are buried.