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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Children's burial ground

Island Eddy, County Galway, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Children's burial ground, Island Eddy, County Galway, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Island Eddy
County
Galway
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.19390, -8.97465
SMR number
GA102-045----

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1753 map "Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1753 · Mappa geographica Regni Hiberniae (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

A single headstone marks the location of a children’s burial ground known as the ‘reiligín’ (a little burial ground). According to local information ‘There was a graveyard on the island, . . . There is one headstone on it to a child, and it was suppoed to be some child who took ill on a passing boat and they pulled inot the island and she died. The graveyard was mostly for burying children.’ (Gosling et al. 2010, 142). The inscription on the headstone reads: JHS / Erected in Memory of / Eliza Murphy Who died / April the 8th AD 1827 / aged 17 Months. / P: Whyte Sculptur (ibid., 140).

Compiled by: Paul Walsh

Date of upload: 24 June 2013

References

Gosling, P., Springer, S., Cannon, M., and Murphy, J. 2010 The grave of Eliza Murphy on Island Eddy, Co. Galway: rubbing, description, poem, story. Journal of the Galway archaeological and historical society 62, 138-43.

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Children's burial ground in Galway All County Galway records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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