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Story Notes
The Holy Angels Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery is the resting place for over fifty thousand infants who were buried there up to the 1970’s. Glasnevin is one of the few Cemeteries that allowed stillborn babies to be buried in consecrated ground. In early times stillborn babies were not allowed in blessed ground, as they were unbaptised. Many babies were buried in the ditches and hedges on the outside of other cemeteries around the country. Often parents buried their babies themselves between dusk and dawn in fear of being caught and yet wanting their baby to buried in Holy Ground.
Up to 20 years ago, Mothers who delivered their stillborn babies in the Dublin Maternity Hospitals or Dublin Nursing Homes never saw their baby at birth. It was often considered to be ‘better’ for them not to. It was common for fathers to be excluded from the experience of childbirth. The Hospital involved would see that the baby was buried in the Holy Angels Plot in Glasnevin.
This is almost too painful to even imagine happening but it did for thousands of parents. Many of whom, come back, years later, to trace where their baby is buried in Glasnevin.
Compiled by Orla Bourke.
Production supervision by Lorelei Harris.
First Broadcast 31st March, 1999.
An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries
Story Credits