Down the Rushy Glen

Last night's talkon Cilliní was well worth going to but what a sad and uncharitable story. St Augustine decided that we are all full of original sin and that infants who died before being baptised were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground, nor were they going to Heaven. Thomas Aquinas tried to make things slightly less grim by suggesting they would go to Limbo instead, almost as good as Heaven if you were a baby. The Canon laws of the 17C expressly forbade anyone who was unbaptised being buried anywhere near a church - this included babies, suicides, women who died in childbirth, murderers and strangers. They had to be buried in unconsecrated ground - often in field boundaries, ringforts or inconspicuous areas and these sites are known as cilliní - little churches. A father was expected to bury his child in the dead of night with no ceremony and no blessing from the church. This practice went on until the early 20C and the canon law referring to this was not repealed until the 1990s. What happened to love and compassion? Most cilliní are marked on OS maps and are known about, but the majority are overgrown and neglected. Some are being restored like this one.

Wild weather in the night, gales and torrential rain. I went to look at the water gushing down from the mountain. All my little fungi from the other day have been washed away.

Off to make moussaka now, friends coming to supper later.