Cross, Selloo, Co. Monaghan
Co. Monaghan |
Crosses & Monuments
At some point between 1968 and 1983, a cross base disappeared from a children's burial ground in Selloo, County Monaghan, and nobody appears to have recorded where it went.
That quiet gap in the record is, in its own way, more telling than the object itself.
The rectangular base, which would originally have supported a standing cross, was associated with an early church site at Selloo. Children's burial grounds of this type, known in Irish as cillíní, are found across Ireland and were typically used for the interment of unbaptised infants, who were excluded from consecrated ground under Catholic practice. They often occupy the edges of older ecclesiastical sites, layering centuries of use onto the same small patch of land. The cross base at Selloo sat within this context until at least 1968, when it was still present and noted. By 1983, it was gone, with no record of removal, relocation, or loss.