A number of the inscriptions at Knockbreda provide details about the cause of death, or the circumstances in which death took place. One of the more unusual is that of Alexander Corry, whose wife Jane erected a memorial recording the fact that he was ‘accidentally strangled by his neck handkerchief being caught whilst turning at a lathe in his own works, Belfast 2nd December 1859 aged 25 years’.

It concludes with a salutary reminder of the uncertainty of life:

‘We cannot tell who next may fall, Beneath thy chastening rod...’