Children's burial ground, Laggoo, Co. Galway

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Burial Grounds

Children’s burial ground, Laggoo, Co. Galway

In a field in Laggoo, County Galway, a scattering of boulders on a gentle south-facing slope marks one of Ireland's quieter, more melancholy categories of sacred site.

The stones, some upright and some lying flat, define an unenclosed rectangular area of roughly ten metres east to west and eight metres north to south. There are no walls around it, no gate, no formal boundary; the graves simply occupy a patch of pastureland on a slight rise, distinguished from the surrounding field mainly by the presence of the stones themselves.

This is a cillin, the Irish term for an informal burial ground used historically for unbaptised infants and others who, under Catholic Church practice, were excluded from consecrated ground. Such sites are found across Ireland, often positioned at liminal spots, old boundaries, or elevated ground, and they were maintained quietly by local communities rather than by any religious institution. The graves here are aligned north to south, which distinguishes them from the more typical east to west orientation of Christian burials. The boulders serve as markers, unworked and unlettered, in keeping with the understated character of these places throughout the country.

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