St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, Northern Ireland is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland. It was built in various phases between 1840 and 1904 to serve as the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Armagh, the original Medieval Cathedral of St Patrick having been transferred to the Protestant Church of Ireland at the time of the Irish Reformation.

The site of the graveyard is on the hill of Knockadrain, which was originally a part of the extensive lands held by the mediaeval Abbey of St Peter and St Paul. The lands of the Abbey were granted to Sir Toby Caulfield at the Plantation and were the only lands in the immediate vicinity of the city which did not come within the ownership of the Protestant Primate following the Plantation. When Dr William Crolly was appointed Archbishop of Armagh in 1835, only 6 years after Catholic Emancipation, he resolved to give practical expression to the emergence of native Catholicism from centuries of suppression. Fortunately, he was able to secure a lease of the hill of Knockadrain--the one piece of non-see land in the area--from the Early of Dartrey. On this he built a seminary for the education of students for the priesthood in 1838, and on the summit of the hill he laid the foundation stone for the cathedral in 1840. Sandy Hill graveyard was also opened for burials. Prior to this the older Catholic families in the city exercised their rights of burial in the ancient graveyard of the Old Cathedral, and, indeed, some continued to exercise their right until a generation or two ago. It must be assumed that others who migrated to the city buried in their family graves at Old Tullysaran, Clonfeacle, Eglish and the Relic at Ballymacnab, or perhaps in the ruined cloisters of the Franciscan Abbey.

The earliest burial inscription is that of Charles Neilus who died 25 September 1828, but it is difficult to reconcile this date with the date of the lease....The earliest other date is that of Mary Lappen, 6 April 1837. We may assume that was the year the graveyard was open for interment......Burials in the graveyard ceased generally in the 1950s. The last interment was that of Winifred Hamill who died 3 July 1972. (Taken from "Gravestone Inscriptions in Sandy Hill Graveyard, Armagh City" by Padraig O hAdhmaill)