My Dublin Mission: What is Remembered, Lives.

The high point of my stay in Dublin was my walk out to Glasnevin Cemetery, a couple of miles north of the City Centre.  From its inception in 1832, Glasnevin has been nondenominational, and it is the final resting place of saints and sinners, real and perceived; prominent governmental and revolutionary figures; playwrights and poets; and plenty of ordinary folk.
  

The towers were used to keep watch at night.  During the 18th and 19th centuries, graveyards were often preyed upon body snatchers, those who dug up corpses to sell to medical schools and research facilities.  There are no known cases of bodies being taken from Glasnevin, so evidently, the sentries watching from on high were a successful deterrent.

 

Angel's Memory Garden is the section of the cemetery reserved for stillborn babies and newborns who died before baptism.  Glasnevin was notable for providing for this, and the section attracted little attention until around 2000.  Memorials for these innocents were unusual in Ireland, and it is only in recent years that the medieval tenet that they were unfit for heaven has been reconsidered and rejected.   I recommend searching out the documentary film Limbo Babies for a more thorough discussion of this subject and its devastating ramifications for Irish families.

My personal mission in Glasnevin was to visit the graves of the Magdalene women and more particularly, to remember them.  Like all good Pagans, I do believe that what is remembered, lives.  I have long been touched and horrified by the story of these penitential institutions.  It is likely that the connection came out of my 95 percent certainty that my mother was born in a similar institution.  I did not learn that she was adopted until my mid-30s, and the information did not come from her.  I am all too aware of the trauma and dysfunction that can result from the shame and secrecy of a so-called illegitimate birth.

When I went to the Magdalene graves, I looked for names.  When the gravestones were nameless "Of your charity, pray for the repose of the souls of the residents of," etc., I stood and told them that while I didn't know their names, I remembered them anyway.  I asked my matron goddess, Brighid, to keep them safe and warm in the Summerlands for all eternity.

With the graves where some names were listed, I followed essentially the same procedure except that I called out each of the names.  "Brigid Kett, Julia Creevey, Margaret Burke, I remember you.  May you walk free and happy in the Summerlands.  May your children walk free and happy in the world."

I left the grave sites feeling very glad that I had stopped to pay my respects.  What is remembered, lives.  They deserve to be known and honored.  However, I think the very best memorial to these unfortunate women is justice: reparations and care for those who still live and a place in the history books to help insure that this never happens again.