A PROFUSION of red poppies have sprung to life - after being buried for more than a century.

The delicate flowers have popped up on the site of the former St Patrick's RC church in Dock Street, West Bank.

They only emerged months after the 109-year-old church was demolished.

Plant experts say it is not unusual for the seeds of field poppies to lie dormant for hundreds of years.

Elaine Soens of the Hardy Plant Society told the World: "The seeds only germinate as soon as the earth is turned over. It doesn't matter if 500 years have gone by.

"That's what happened in Flanders when men were killed in the First World War. The disturbance caused by the bombs and the shelling turned over the land and resulted in red poppies coming up as the men fell.

"The first time they come up, there is often a huge flush, a profusion of colour."

It is understood that the land at St Patrick's could have been a cornfield hundreds of years ago.

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