Bog Meadows Consecration

From the BBC website:


The Bishop of Down and Connor has officially consecrated land where the remains of babies and infants are thought to have been buried.

The Bog Meadows, at the bottom of Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast, is thought to hold hundreds of unmarked graves.

The land was owned by the Catholic Church but sold some years ago to the Ulster Wildlife Trust.
On Sunday, Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Noel Treanor, blessed the plot. He said it was important to recognise there were burials in the area.

"The church is desirous and happy to undo any errors, to honour the memory of these children, to recognise the grief of the parents, not only in the loss of their children but in their sense the neglect of those children by the community by the church," he said. "As of October of last year, the diocese went actively about reacquiring this part of the graveyard."

Families believed hundreds of dead babies may have been inadvertently transferred out of the cemetery when the land was sold. They had been campaigning to have the plot consecrated and treated as an integral part of Milltown Cemetery.

Earlier this year, archaeologists undertook a radar search for graves in the Bog Meadows. It is understood the fence which separated the plot from the rest of the cemetery has now been taken down.