A chara, – "The cillíní of Achill – Uninscribed graves that tell of a dark past" by Colette Sheridan (Arts & Ideas, April 23rd) does well to remind us of our history. It does not, however, take into account the conditions of the times.
Uninscribed graves were not exclusive to infants. Well into the 19th century, inscribed grave-markers were the exception rather than the rule. Many of your readers will recall the 1902 short story by Seumas O'Kelly, The Weaver's Grave, which tells of arguments over the proper site for the burial of the weaver in a country graveyard, where the sites of previous burials were unidentified. This was later dramatised; the RTÉ production which won the 1961 Prix d'Italia is available on their website.
Ms Sheridan writes, “the perception of these unjustly treated people who were born in less enlightened times is also changing at last”. This errs in judging previous generations by what we expect as normal today. Perhaps three-quarters of burials in Glasnevin cemetery are unmarked. My great-grandmother died in 1899; her grave in Glasnevin was unmarked until a few years ago.
In Clara Vale, Co Wicklow, the green area between the 1799 Catholic church and the river Avonmore is a burial ground which had only marker stones without inscriptions; over many years these stones were displaced. In the burial ground surrounding the 1803 church of St Patrick in Barranisky, we asked a local undertaker to come to probe the ground to detect the sites of earlier unmarked graves, so we could know how many spaces were still free. I’m sure many undertakers are familiar with this.
It is not that there was lack of respect for the dead. The custom of the time was no doubt influenced by poverty – an inscribed marker was expensive. Apart from ancient burial sites like Newgrange, Loughcrew, etc, inscribed graves earlier than the 19th century are predominantly of wealthy influential families. Another factor was that, until the Act of Easement of Burial Bill of 1824, Catholics in Ireland had to go to the clergy of the established church, the Church of Ireland, to arrange burial, and they had to pay for that permission. Daniel O’Connell was instrumental in opening Goldenbridge cemetery, and then Glasnevin, as burial places open to all.
We know of “holy angels” plots with unmarked graves of infants around the country. It may be difficult for us today to appreciate it, but this was at least in part a kindness to the parents in times of high infant mortality, to spare especially the mother following childbirth, and to save expense.
People in sorrow in the past showed respect as they could then, imperfectly, in cillíní and elsewhere, as we do today in our way. – Is mise,
PÁDRAIG McCARTHY,
Sandyford, Dublin 16.