Belfast's Milltown Cemetery:
Atmosphere ‘tense,’ ‘emotions … just below the surface’
(Images courtesy of Toni Maguire)
Last year’s BBC documentary on Ireland's "Limbo Babies"
[featured on our Family
History YouTube channel] brought to light an emotionally charged issue that
affected almost all of our Irish ancestors. Ever since the Roman Catholic
Church declared that the non-baptized were forbidden burial in consecrated
ground, faithful Catholics, particularly parents, were tormented by the
uncertain fate of these infants.
Family stories have been transmitted, often in muted
conversations, through the centuries, of burials carried out in secret along
the fence lines of consecrated ground. In secret and under the cover of
night, our ancestors placed their loved ones, mostly stillborn who had not yet
been baptized, as close to consecrated ground as possible or in a place they
felt God would better find and embrace them.
The lack of records for the cillíní [children’s burial
grounds] makes it challenging for archaeologists to identify them. This
difficulty is compounded by the Church’s ambivalent attitude toward those
buried within – they were, in the Church’s view, neither in nor completely
beyond the family of Christianity. Even the word cillíní itself,
meaning 'little graveyard' in Irish, suggests the separation of the graves.
Toni Maguire, the archaeologist and anthropologist
featured in "Limbo Babies," started her research in 2006 with the 11
sites recorded by the Northern Ireland Environmental Agency (Sites and
Monuments). Maguire eventually recorded 97 cilliní for County Antrim alone, a
number that is growing. "Cillíní sites can vary from bog land to hill
tops, fairy trees and prehistoric standing stones, to disused Christian and
pagan sites down through the ages,” says Maguire.
This issue was drawn into the public eye when in 2000 the
Diocese of Down and Conor, the trustee of Belfast's Milltown Cemetery, sold 37
acres of cemetery land to the Ulster Wildlife Trust for £37,000 [$57,000 US].
The church later described the sale of the land as a “clerical error.” This
acreage had long been known to contain thousands of bodies in mass inhumation
[unconsecrated] graves.
Maguire came in to assist the families in finding proof that
there were far more burials in the land sold than the 11,000 listed in the
cemetery records, so they could convince the diocese to buy back the land and
return it to its stewardship. The diocese authorized a survey using
ground-penetrating radar to determine just how far into the bog meadows the
graves might extend. The results were so staggering that an extensive
excavation project, exploring 51 trenches, was started last month, headed by the Northern
Archaeological Consultancy (NAC).
Alannah Ryane, TheWildGeese.com’s Family
History Producer, posed, via e-mail, questions to Maguire as the archaeologist
was on site at the Milltown Cemetery dig. Ryane asked Maguire about the status
of the project and what she hopes to accomplish with it. We continue below with
the Q&A, the second of the three parts:
TheWildGeese.com: What is the general
atmosphere at the site, and who was there to witness this initial excavation?
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Toni
Maguire Milltown Cemetery Dig - Jan 2012
|
Toni Maguire: The atmosphere is tense and
emotions are always just below the surface, but the families draw strength from
each other as they sprinkle the ground with Holy Water and pray to find all
those buried in the land. There is a small excavation team from NAC [Northern
Archaeological Consultancy] who have braved the cold and rain to complete the
work. The start of the excavation was witnessed by me and a selection of
representatives from among the families.
The potential for emotional distress must be considered here;
these relatives have had an emotional journey to get to this point, and all
credit is due to them for remaining steadfast in the face of opposition from
many quarters. The prospect of disturbing infant remains has been a hard
realization to deal with for relatives, never the less, they want to finally
know the truth of what happened to the ‘Shoe-Box’ babies of Milltown Cemetery.
TheWildGeese.com: Another
deeper level of this issue is the concept of Limbo, which the Catholic Church
finally abandoned in 2007, interestingly, just when you started your
research. Do you think that the enormity of this declaration and the
centuries of cilliní burials that preceded it have left the Church overwhelmed?
Maguire: The belief in an afterlife is a common
theme in many religions, which has been firmly entrenched in the psyche of the
faithful, irrespective of the faith involved. In Christianity, active
participation in the rule of the Church and the sacraments was seen as the only
path to salvation and everlasting life with God. The alternative to salvation
involved eternal torment in Hell, from which there was no escape.
The Theological Commission instructed by the last Pope to
look at the concept of Limbo did not abandon it, but stated that Limbo must be considered in light of God's
universal salvific will, and, as such, the church reaffirmed that baptism was
still the only sure way to salvation. On April 20, 2007, the
International Theological Commission, an advisory body comprised of 30
theologians from around the world, released its long-awaited document, “The
Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized.” Sister Sara
Butler, a spokeswoman for the commission, was interviewed on the findings
and commented, “It must be clearly acknowledged that the Church does not
have sure knowledge about the salvation of unbaptized infants who die.”
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Cillini
Baby Graveyard - Unconsecrated Ground
|
Let’s be quite
clear about this, the fate of an infant who died without the blessing of
baptism was considered by the Catholic Church as pagan and as such outside the
remit of the church.The attitudes of the early Christian church in
relationship to the fate of infants and children who died without baptism, was
inhumane by today’s standards. It had taken 1,500 years to reform the Catholic
Church since the time of St. Augustine, or so we like to think, but the fact
that this tradition continued into the mid-1990s in Ireland speaks volumes
about the influence on society, in general, of the adherence to this outdated
theology of the church and the degree of suffering imposed on grieving parents
at a very vulnerable time in their lives. As they had not been initiated into
the community of God, according to the Christian church, these children were
subsequently denied burial on consecrated ground.
TheWildGeese.com: The amount of cilliní burials since medieval
times all over Ireland must be staggering. How do you plan to proceed in
locating them?
Maguire: The establishment of the newly formed
group HUG Alliance [Hidden in Unconsecrated Ground] is dedicated to
highlighting the plight of those who are buried in a marginalized context in
Ireland. We will enlist the help of local historians across the country to
collect information on cilliní in their area and for individuals to bring their
personal stories to us. In this way, we intend to record the location of
these important social and archaeological sites and address the attitudes of
stigma attached to such burial, which is still prevalent in Irish society
today.
Due to the furtive nature of cilliní within the landscape,
their very existence often resided in the social memory of the local
population; but as those with such knowledge pass on, the location is lost. Cilliní
represented a cultural and religious solution to a complex problem, the burial
of infants and children who died without the sacrament of baptism.
The view of the Christian church was clear; these children
died with the stain of original sin on their soul and could, therefore, not be
buried on consecrated ground. These children were denied a social persona, no
marker displayed their name and as such they constituted a marginalized group
within the society of the dead as well as the living; in the eyes of society,
these children were destined to suffer a double death, both physical and
spiritual. The focus of my research has been to save cilliní and its
associated traditions from obscurity.
ABOUT TONI MAGUIRE: Toni Maguire has a
bachelor’s degree in archaeology and palaeoecology and a master’s degree in
social anthropology. She is currently involved in Ph.D. research at
Milltown Cemetery and is married to Leo Maguire, the Northern Ireland National
Taekwondo Coach. Toni has lost three babies, so she can empathize with
the families at Milltown. For more information about cillíní, please
contact Toni Maguire, at mmaguire19@qub.ac.uk.
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