Ep. 19 - Panel 5A - Part 1 - The forgotten mothers of the Cillín - Sheena Graham-George (GSchArt)

NPPSH Conference

Over the last thirty years communities throughout Ireland have actively been engaged in reclaiming part of their past. The legacy of the cilliní, the un-baptised infant burial grounds, have over the generations cast a long shadow across the lives of many Irish families whose children lie buried in these plots. But what of the families who lost wives and mothers ‘who died in childbirth but haven’t been churched’ (Dixon 2012)? Oral history sources tell us they were also buried there along with suicides, strangers, shipwrecked sailors, murderers and their unfortunate victims, criminals, famine victims, the mentally disabled. All considered unsuitable for burial within consecrated ground. Why would a Catholic ‘woman who had died in or shortly after childbirth’ (Donnelly & Murphy 2008:213) be denied burial in consecrated ground? Apart from mention in oral history little information appears to be available regarding these women who have all but become invisible which makes one question if this invisibility is a reflection of their status in society in rural Ireland during the late 19th and mid twentieth century or is it as a result of Canon laws pertaining to women and childbirth in relation to the traditional Christian ceremony of The Churching of Women mixed with local superstitions and folk-belief concerning post-parturient women? Or possibly it is a potent concoction of all the above elements, society, church and superstition colluding to obscure the memory of these many wives and mothers. Sheena Graham-George is an Orkney based visual artist and is currently half way through her practice-based PhD at Glasgow School of Art. Her research is concerned with memory, place and community in relation to the Irish cillíní, the un-baptised infant burial grounds and disenfranchised grief. Her work as an artist looks at the role of memorializing the marginalized dead through art as a conceivable way for communities to make peace with a past which differs in attitude from the present and the ways that art might communicate universal loss and compassion whilst becoming an integral part of the healing process.