Saving Ireland’s forgotten burial sites

Q&A: William Casey

Burial sites have been discovered on unconsecrated ground across Ireland — inside abandoned churches, in prehistoric megalithic tombs and monuments, against boundary walls and ditches, on the shores of lakes and oceans and on the north side of Catholic churchyards.

These sites are known as cilliní, or children’s burial grounds, a place where unbaptised children were laid to rest, as were convicted murderers, illegitimate children, their mothers and those whose religion was not known.