More than 20 memorials were vandalised in the attack at Carnmoney Cemetery in Newtownabbey.

It is the second attack on the graveyard in the last fortnight. There was also an attack in May on the grave of a man murdered by loyalists earlier in the year.

In Friday night's attack, memorial crosses on some graves were smashed and headstones were overturned.

The resting place of the dead has always been regarded by people as something sacred

Fr Dan White

It is thought all of the graves targeted belonged to Catholic families.

Father Dan White, who is parish priest for the area, said it was the worst attack of its kind he had seen.

"The resting place of the dead has always been regarded by people as something sacred.

When we don't recongise that and don't live by that, we have lost our humanity. I think it is terrible what has happened here," he said.

The cemetery is beside Rathcoole estate, a loyalist housing estate where Catholic postman Daniel McColgan, 20, was murdered by the Ulster Defence Association as he arrived for work in January 2002.

In May, his grave in Carnmoney was damaged in a similar attack.