Children’s Burial Grounds in Ireland (Cilliní) and Parental Emotions Toward Infant Death

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    56 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Cilliní—or children’s burial grounds—were the designated resting places for unbaptized infants and other members of Irish society who were considered unsuitable by the Roman Catholic Church for burial in consecrated ground. The sites appear to have proliferated from the seventeenth century onwards in the wake of the Counter-Reformation. While a number of previous studies have attempted to relate their apparently marginal characteristics to the liminality of Limbo, evidence drawn from the archaeological record and oral history accounts suggests that it was only the Roman Catholic Church that considered cilliní, and those interred within, to be marginal. In contrast, the evidence suggests that the families of the dead regarded the cemeteries as important places of burial and treated them in a similar manner to consecrated burial grounds.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)409-428
    Number of pages20
    JournalInternational Journal of Historical Archaeology
    Volume15
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Sept 2011

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Geography, Planning and Development
    • Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
    • Archaeology
    • History

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