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MIXED MESSAGES.

Using signs, advertisements and messages as the inspiration for observation and comment - enlightened and otherwise

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Remembering The Cillíní & Those Buried There

30/7/2020

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​Shanrahan Cemetery – Part 5 


According to P.J. and his lady wife, whose evening stroll I interrupted, when in Shanrahan Cemetery last week, this small section was a Cillín, where unbaptised babies were buried.
 
I remember first learning of a Killeen or Cillín or Ceallúrach over 30 years ago in a book by Mary Leland, which I have just borrowed from the library to relive that moment of amazement.
​

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Cromane, Co. Kerry
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Cromane, Co. Kerry


​​“Substantial numbers of cillíní exist in Ireland, some 1,444 across both jurisdictions; this distribution, however, is an uneven one, with 66% (954/1,444) of sites located in the west in counties Kerry, Galway and Mayo. Dating evidence derived from excavated cillíní would tend to suggest that in the majority of cases they were early modern date (87%; 20/23), and it can be suggested that the proliferation of cillíní appears to be directly associated with the reinvigorated Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation in Ireland,”
 
Donnelly, C. J. and Murphy, E. M., ‘Children’s burial grounds (cillíní) in Ireland’, in Ryan, S. (ed.), Death and the Irish: a miscellany (Dublin, 2016).
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Killorglin, Co. Kerry
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Kilklorglin, Co. Kerry

The amazement at the existence of such burial grounds was heightened by the fact that, to my knowledge, I had never seen a Cillín. This continued for many years, until 2014 when I spotted the above plaques in Cromane and Killorglin in Co. Kerry. Subsequently, I noted a plaque at Ballygarvan in Co. Cork and have spotted mention to some Cillín’s that have gone on my To Visit map
​

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Ballygarvan, Co. Cork
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Ballygarvan, Co. Cork

​It appears that it has taken many years for Ireland to be no longer ashamed of Cillín, possibly facilitated and assisted by the passing of time since 1994 when the Catholic Church lifted the prohibition on unbaptised being buried in consecrated ground – only 26 years ago.
 
The Schools Collection of the National Folklore Collection has many references to ‘Cillín’ and ‘Killeen’  which hopefully I will study in the coming weeks. The Irish Examiner noted in 2014 of some Cillíní being brought back and recognised by the community. It is reported that there are 1,444 Cillíní on the island of Ireland – my expectation would have been a significantly greater number.


 
If you are aware of any plaque or memorial erected at a Cillín, I would be delighted to receive any details as to where, when, by whom – please use the Contact page

​
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“As the lane curves around towards the graveyard there is a small patch of ground on which lumps of rough-hewn stone are scattered. They are small, each less than the size of a football. There is a sign that reads: ‘Don’t pray for us/ no sins we knew / But for our parents/ they’ll pray for you.
This is the Ceallurach, the burial ground of the unbaptised children of the Famine. In Hannah Purtill’s time there was no sign here to mark the land. They didn’t need one. Everybody knew. My grandmother went to school when they were still living survivors of the disaster. Even then, when people sought every patch of ground to work, the little field was left to become overgrown: outside the burial rites of the church but sacred in its own forbidding, heartbreaking way. Nobody would ever use the land.”
Fergal Keane – Wounds: A memoir of War & Love
‘A lady was found drowned, it seems, on the Island Strand at the time when Santa Maria de la Rosa  floundered. According to old stories about her she was a wealthy woman; she wore many rings and bracelets of gold and was buried at Castle Point where the graveyard is today. She was not buried, strange to say, in the graveyard proper but outside it. Years ago an old man showed me the spot.’
O’Crohan, S., A Day In Our Life, (Oxford,1992).
​ ‘The weeping and the wailing grew loud again as the coffin was lifted on to the shoulders of four men, carried out of the house and down the steep and slippery path that led to the island harbour. On the way they passed the tiny graveyard at Castle Point, which was used for children who had died before they were baptized. The adults buried there were unidentified shipwreck victims, soldiers, suicides, and a few souls whose funerals had been confined to the island by storm.’
Moreton, C., Hungry For Home – A Journey From The Edge Of Ireland, (London, 2000).
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The Fairy Tree

29/7/2020

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Shanrahan Cemetery – Part 4

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Trinity Well, Newmarket, Co. Cork
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Holy Well of St. Colman MacDuagh, Oughtmama, Co. Clare
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I have read of and encountered Rag Trees at Holy Wells.
 
Most people would have heard of the planned motorway in Co. Clare being rerouted so as to avoid knocking a Fairy Tree.
 ​
Until last week, I had not heard of the song, The Fairy Tree sung by John McCormack among others – or heard of Kate Ryan who features in the song’s lyrics.

As we were making to leave the cemetery for the first time, local residents, P.J. and his good wife, out for their evening stroll, educated me as to The Fairy Tree and brought me to the grave of Katie Ryan where the headstone records the name of the deceased and the song.
 
It is a bad day when one does not learn something new.

​“They’ll tell you dead men hung there
Its black and bitter fruit
To guard the buried treasure
Round which it twines its root
They’ll tell you Cromwell hung them
But that could never be
He’d be in dread like others
To touch the Fairy Tree  “
“From moonrise round the thorn tree
The little people play
And men and women passing
Will turn their heads away
But if your heart’s a child’s heart
And if your eyes are clean
You’ll never fear the thorn tree
That grows beyond Clogheen”
Temple Lane
​
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Speaking Of Andrew Abraham – While We Still Can

28/7/2020

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​Shanrahan Cemetery – Part 3

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​There are three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave. The third is that moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the last time.
​
David Eagleman – Sum: Forty Tales From The Afterlives
I first spotted this quote online in a tweet by Louvain Rees – it immediately resonated.
 
Subsequently, I borrowed the book from the library and have had it for a Covid-extended loan period.
 
On my adventure through Shanrahan Cemetery, with P.J. and his good wife who were out for their evening stroll, I shared the quote when we were near the gate and the headstone to Andrew Abraham which, like the Browne headstone in Ballyhooley, is slowly but surely being absorbed into a tree.

​

Within a decade or so, it may be that the name Andrew Abraham may be spoken for the last time at Shanrahan Cemetery – the hunger of the tree shows no respect for the dead.

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Finding A Lost Séamus Murphy

27/7/2020

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​Maybe Not Lost Lost – Just Lost In Plain Sight

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Shanrahan Cemetery – Part 2
​


Those of you who drop by here regularly will be well aware of my appreciation of and interest in the work of the Cork Sculptor, Séamus Murphy.
​


The book published by the Crawford Art Gallery continues to be a source for some detours on my various journeys to visit his headstones, statues or plaques that I have not yet photpgraphed and touched – touching of stonework, especially headstones, is very important.


​
The book does not list any headstone in Clogheen or Shanrahan. It makes no reference to Edward Sackville-West.
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When in Shanrahan last week, I decided to look out for headstones, the subject of Photo Requests on the Find-A-Grave website. Three requests proved elusive. William Wade was spotted close to the O’Callaghan mausoleum.

The date of death of 1965 suggested that the headstone of Edward Sackville-West would be easily found in the new part of the cemetery and it was. His Find-A-Grave biography does read of an interesting life.

That evening I met P.J. and his lady wife who were out for a stroll and advised that they understood that Edward was descended from the family that gave its name to Sackville Street – now O’Connell St. in Dublin. The referred me to a book by local historian Ed O’Riordan – Lonely Little God’s Acre on Shanrahan cemetery which has now been requested through the Inter-Library Loan.
​

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​On a Tuesday evening, outside Clogheen in County Tipperary, I was smiling broadly once the carver’s name was spotted. The headstone was admired, and touched.
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The Timing Of Commemoration

26/7/2020

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Earlier this week, a long day’s work after an early start finished in Cahir just after five and I decided to treat myself to a Supertramp evening – I took the Long Way Home , the road not previously travelled.

I have recently started putting my ‘To Visit’ locations on a Google Map so that it is easier to cross-check diversions and distractions when time may permit on a journey.

I recently learned of Fr. Nicholas Sheehy via Tipperary Studies on Twitter. He was hung drawn and quartered in Clonmel in 1766 and buried in Shanrahan Cemetery, outside Clogheen in Co. Tipperary where he is also remembered with a monument outside the church and in the name of the local GAA Club – An t-Athair Sithigh.

Fr. Sheehy’s grave is in a reasonably prominent position in the graveyard – a double grave adjacent to the old church, shared with Rev. Dr. James Glison.
​

It is interesting to note that the plaque was erected in 1898, the centenary year of the 1798 rebellion and 132 years after his death. The tomb conservation was in 2013. The final project of my Local History course is on remembrance and commemoration – the To Do list not contains questions:
  • why the delay in commemoration
  • were there no 1798 local heroes to commemorate at the centenary in 1898
  • why 2013 for the conservation works?
  • When was GAA Club formed?

​As ever, some knowledge leads to more questions.

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    From Cork.

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