Kilmurry Grave Yard, Skecoor, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Burial Grounds

Kilmurry Grave Yard, Skecoor, Co. Galway

In a stretch of flat, reclaimed farmland in east Galway, a low D-shaped rise holds a children's burial ground that has no enclosing wall, no gate, and no formal boundary to separate it from the fields around it.

The graves, marked by set stones aligned east to west in the traditional Christian orientation, occupy an area roughly 22 metres north to south and just over 13 metres east to west. What gives the site its quiet strangeness is precisely this lack of enclosure: it simply exists in the open land, marked by stones rather than masonry, shaped by use rather than construction.

This is a cillín, the Irish term for an unconsecrated burial ground used historically for unbaptised infants, and occasionally for others considered ineligible for burial in consecrated ground. Such sites are found across Ireland, often in marginal or liminal locations, and they represent a practice that persisted well into the twentieth century, shaped by Catholic doctrine on original sin and the exclusion of unbaptised souls from formal churchyards. The community continued to use and maintain these places despite their unofficial status, and many retain their set stones and vague outlines long after the burials ceased. At Skecoor, a mound of field-clearance rubble has accumulated around the monument from the west to the north, suggesting that the surrounding land has been actively worked for generations, with the burial ground absorbed into the agricultural landscape rather than set apart from it. A silage pit has since encroached upon the north-eastern edge, pressing the modern working farm right up against the older ground.

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