The babies were buried in the dark. The day the infant died, the father would take the body from the home and journey on their own to the cillín which could be some distance away. They would bury the infant between nightfall and dawn. The mother remained at home, confined, not permitted to name the baby, often never informed as to the exact burial site.
Cillíní fell out of use as the last century wore on and finally stopped around the 1970s.
This exhibition is touring Ireland during 2020-21. Having completed its showing in the RHA Gallery in Dublin last November and The Dock in Carrick-on-Shannon in March, it will tour to Uillinn, the West Cork Arts Centre in Skibbereen from 6 November - 15 December 2021.
For the book, the RHA commissioned a poem by Una Mannion, winner of the inaugural Seamus Heaney Hennessy Poetry Award and a short essay by Dr. Marion Dowd, an Irish writer and archaeologist.
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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RHA Gallery, Dublin
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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The Dock, Carrick-on-Shannon
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Uillinn, Skibbereen, Cork
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Ballydawley, County Sligo
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Curragh More, County Kerry
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Sessuegarry, County Sligo
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Maunvough, County Cork
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Leckanarainey, County Leitrim
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Carrownamadoo, County Sligo
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Sheeanmore, County Sligo
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Lacken - County Mayo
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Sligo Racetrack, County Sligo
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- Poem 'a landscape for forgetting' by Una Mannion, hand-lettered on the wall by Darragh Stewart