Lecture on children's burial grounds

Mayo Historical and Archaeological Society presents the final talk of the current season in the ATU Campus, Castlebar on Wednesday, March 20th, at 7.30pm.

The title of the presentation is "Children's Burial Grounds (Cillíní) and the Early Modern Religious Landscape" and the speaker is Professor Eileen Murphy, Queen's University, Belfast.

Cillíní (children’s burial grounds) are a recognised class of Irish archaeological monument that was used for the interment of unbaptised infants and others not permitted burial in consecrated ground. The archaeological evidence suggests that the sites proliferated from the 17th century and can be linked to the efforts of the Counter-Reformation in Ireland. 

At least 1,700 of these poignant sites have been recorded across Ireland and they occur at a diverse range of locations, including natural landmarks, archaeological monuments, and abandoned Medieval ecclesiastical sites. The presentation will provide an introduction to the sites and explore their relationship to other sites in the Early Modern religious landscape.

Professor Eileen Murphy is Deputy Head of the School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen's University, Belfast. Her research focuses particularly on human skeletal populations recovered from prehistoric Russia and all periods in Ireland. She is particularly interested in the use of approaches from bioarchaeology and funerary archaeology to help further understanding of the lives and experiences of people in the past. Another of her research interests involves the study of past children and she is the founding editor of the international journal, Childhood in the Past.

All are welcome. Fáilte roimh chách.