Paper short abstract:

Burial grounds used for unbaptised infants from the late 1500s to early 1900s across the Scottish Highlands provide a glimpse into conceptions of the infant, eschatological concerns, and the role of retained/reworked medieval practices in alleviating those concerns, even long after Reformation.

Paper long abstract:

From the Reformation to the early 20th Century, the unbaptised infant dead were interred in secret burial grounds across northwest Scotland, their locations known only to a small, local community. Traditionally buried by nightfall in unmarked or nominally marked but anonymous graves, only a very few family members would know the exact site of the remains. Their graves were considered dangerous, even deadly, and avoiding infant burial grounds was actively advocated in folk tradition.

These unnamed, unbaptised infants did not fall neatly into public or personal narratives of remembrance: they never quite existed. Outside of the culture of both the living and the acceptable dead they were excluded from the eternal fate of their named counterparts. With the Reformation came official declarations that limbo and purgatory were abominations, leaving no recognised recourse for families to ensure their unbaptised infant's eternal fate.

Despite this, archaeological survey shows a high affinity for abandoned holy ground as host sites for infant burial grounds (IBGs), several of which still bear the name of sympathetic saints such as St. Bridget 'Mary of the Gaels', and the Virgin Mary. IBGs also continually reappear in locations with a strong water presence: by the sea, at river confluences, alongside lochs. Taken within the broader perspective, it is possible to identify key eschatological concerns in the early modern Gaelhealtachd, particularly for the infant dead, and the role of retained and/or reworked medieval practices in alleviating those concerns, even long after the Reformation.