Cillín

The babies were buried in the dark. The day the infant died, the father would take the body from the home and journey on their own to the cillín which could be some distance away. They would bury the infant between nightfall and dawn. The mother remained at home, confined, not permitted to name the baby, often never informed as to the exact burial site.
From Cilliín; an exhibition of photography by Tommy Weir


An adventurous afternoon. We went in search for a sweathouse but ended up in a cillín!
Himself has been doing a spot of work on sweathouses which are a bit like Irish saunas, once used to relieve ailment such as arthritis and rheumatism, They look like beehive huts and we think we've found one near  us in Kilcrohane. There are only two others marked on the Archaeological Inventory for County Cork, one sort of near Skibbereen.  We decided to go and investigate but first we picked up William who is an expert on cillíní for on the OS maps the sweathouse looked very close to a cillín. He asked if he could come too. The more the merrier. 
We headed off down very small, very wet roads (it has actually stopped raining though) and ended up in a farm where we though it wise to ask advice and permission. We spoke to the farmer who said the land belonged to someone else and gave us a number. Himself rang and Gerry  said he would be down to meet us. He duly arrived and we bounced in convoy down some even smaller roads and ended up in a disused farm.  Gerry led the way and the first thing we encountered was this poignant and rather beautiful cillín. What is a cillín you inquire? Sadly it has a wretched history for here unbaptised children were buried, in great secrecy at the dead of night usually by the father. There are many of these tiny graveyards all over Ireland: cillín means little church. They are often found near something special - a holy well, a ringfort, on a field boundary, a liminal space of some kind, most now forgotten.  William, who has been recording all the cillín in County Cork, was thrilled to find it for it is a beautiful example - a teeny burial ground enclosed by an earthen wall appropriately guarded by hawthorn trees and inside a jumble of stone markers, each one a sad story. At least this one will now be properly recorded.
We then went on in search of the sweathouse but I shall leave that part of the story until tomorrow! Cliff hanger or what!