The owner of land where babies are buried was criticised yesterday for not allowing a memorial on the site.
Historian Joe McGowan spoke at the unveiling of a monument commemorating hundreds of babies buried in secret in unmarked graves on Hugh Tunney's Classiebawn Castle estate at Mullaghmore, Co Sligo.
The memorial was erected on a road outside the estate because, Mr McGowan claimed, Mr Tunney would not allow it to be placed on the actual burial site.
Mr McGowan, head of a committee which campaigned for the memorial, told a crowd of about 100: "In time to come people may ask why the stone is on the side of the road rather than on the graveyard itself . . . Our hurt is understandable, but maybe Hugh Tunney is more to be pitied than blamed. He could be a part of the community here with us today."
In recent years Mr Tunney has been in dispute with local people and the planning department of Sligo County Council over work on sand dunes, the felling of trees and the blocking of rights of way.
Hundreds of similar sites around the country contain the remains of unbaptised infants and still-born babies as a result of the Catholic Church's refusal to allow their burial on consecrated ground. Because a stigma was attached to the deaths, the bodies were often buried secretly and in darkness. Mr McGowan said that this practise continued in some areas until 1963, when the Catholic Church changed its teaching on the matter.
Mr Tunney did not respond yesterday to queries left on his voicemail about the dispute.