The Forgotten Mothers of the Cillíní

Abstract

Hidden away, folded within Ireland’s rural landscape, cillíní are historically, emotionally and politically complex sites. The landscapes of the cillíní are personal sites of mourning and remembrance for families whose stories have, in many cases, remained hidden away, as part of the burying process of a difficult history. Often referred to as Children’s Burial Grounds, cillíní were primarily used for babies who were still born, miscarried or who died at birth without baptism thus not qualifying for burial within consecrated ground. The word cillíní describes sites which have distinctly different histories in relation to their landscape contexts, narrative within the com-munities which they served and the multiple temporalities which underlay each site. Evidence suggests that cillíní were in use from the medieval period (Dennehy, The Placeless Dead? 13; Finley 408) until late twentieth century when the custom waned after the Second Vatican Council in 1962 - 1965, however, burial has been recorded after this time as late as 1981 (Graham-George 2016)