For centuries unbaptised babies who were either stillborn or who died before they could be baptised, could not be buried inside the boundaries of a consecrated graveyard. Gerry Ginty, a Ballina monumental sculptor, erected a monument to these children in 2000. As a young man, he had seen heart-broken families making the lonely journey on their own up the hill at Leigue Cemetery to bury the tiny body of a family member in a communal site outside the walls of the new graveyard. Sometimes these sites carried the name "cillín" or the place itself would be called Killeen, as in Killeenduff above.
For centuries unbaptised babies who were either stillborn or who died before they could be baptised, could not be buried inside the boundaries of a consecrated graveyard. Gerry Ginty, a Ballina monumental sculptor, erected a monument to these children in 2000. As a young man, he had seen heart-broken families making the lonely journey on their own up the hill at Leigue Cemetery to bury the tiny body of a family member in a communal site outside the walls of the new graveyard. Sometimes these sites carried the name "cillín" or the place itself would be called Killeen, as in Killeenduff above.
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