The Cillín

The cillín forms part of silent grief which was only really was discussed within the last years. There is a cillín in every parish, or rather between every parish, in the country. Many have been erased from the landscape, while others remain as a silent memory to a less compassionate era. I have photos of monuments to the cillín in Gone the Way of Truth. I came across this poem by Derry O'Sullivan while watching a documentary about the Oileán na Marbh, the island of the dead, which served as a cillín in Donegal. This poem, written in Irish with an English translation after it, is about a cillín in Cork.

Saolaíodh id bhás thú

is cóiríodh do ghéaga gorma

ar chróchar beo do mháthar

sreang an imleacáin slán eadraibh

amhail line ghutháin as ord.

Dúirt an sagart go rabhais ródhéanach

don uisce baiste rónaofa

a d'éirigh i Loch Bó Finne

is a ghlanadh fíréin Bheanntraí.

Gearradh uaithi thú

is filleadh thú gan ní

i bpáipéar Réalt an Deiscirt

cinnlínte faoin gCogadh Domhanda le do bhéal.

Deineadh comhrainn duit de bhosca oráistí

is mar requiem d'éist do mháthair

le casúireacht amuigh sa phasáiste

is an bhanaltra á rá léi

go raghfá gan stró go Liombó.

Amach as Ospidéal na Trócaire

d'iompair an garraíodóir faoina ascaill thú

i dtafann gadhar de shocraid

go gort neantógach

ar an dtugtar fós an Coiníneach.

Is ann a cuireadh thú

gan phaidir, gan chloch, gan chrois

i bpoll éadoimhin i dteannta

míle marbhghin gan ainm

gan de chuairteoirí chugat ach na madraí ocracha.

Inniu, daichead bliain níos faide anall,

léas i Réalt an Deiscirt

nach gcreideann diagairí a thuilleadh

gur ann do Liombó.

Ach geallaimse duit, a dheartháirín

nach bhfaca éinne dath do shúl

nach gcreidfead choice iontu arís:

tá Liombó ann chomh cinnte is atá Loch Bó Finne

agus is ann ó shin a mhaireann do mhathair,

a smaointe amhail neantóga á dó,

gach nuachtán ina leabhar urnaí,

ag éisteacht le leanaí neamhnite

i dtafann tráthnóna na madraí.

You were born dead

and your blue limbs were folded

on the living bier of your mother

the umbilical cord unbroken between you

like an out-of-service phone line.

The priest said it was too late

for the blessed baptismal water

that arose from Lough Bofinne

and cleansed the elect of Bantry.

So you were cut from her

and wrapped, unwashed,

in a copy of The Southern Star,

a headline about the War across your mouth.

An orange box would serve as coffin

and, as requiem, your mother listened

to hammering out in the hallway,

and the nurse saying to her

that you'd make Limbo without any trouble.

Out of the Mercy Hospital

the gardener carried you under his arm

with barking of dogs for a funeral oration

to a nettle-covered field

that they still call the little churchyard.

You were buried there

without cross or prayer

your grave a shallow hole;

one of a thousand without names

with only the hungry dogs for visitors.

Today, forty years on

I read in The Southern Star --

theologians have stopped believing

in Limbo.

But I'm telling you, little brother

whose eyes never opened

that I've stopped believing in them.

For Limbo is as real as Lough Bofinne:

Limbo is the place your mother never left,

where her thoughts lash her like nettles

and The Southern Star in her lap is an unread breviary;

where she strains to hear the names of nameless children

in the barking of dogs, each and every afternoon. 

Translated from the Irish by Kaarina Hollo