My mother gave birth to a stillborn baby in the early 60's. Would it have been buried and recorded?

[Catterpillar]

I discovered fairly recently from my aunt that my mother gave birth to a stillborn baby in the early 1960's.
Both my parents and most elderly relatives have now passed away and I don't want to trouble my aunt as she has been poorly.
This was never mentioned when we were growing up.
This was in the west coast of Ireland in a rural area.
I'm just curious more than anything as to whether the baby would have been buried?
Presumably if it did happen it would have been in a family grave?
Would the Catholic church have kept a record of these deaths?

In England not Ireland but similar happened to MIL in the early 50s with stillborn twins. She nearly died herself (pre eclampsia) and had no idea what had happened to the bodies until a couple of years ago when I asked her if she wanted me to try and find out.

In the end it was very simple, the local Records Office had a record of it. The twins had been buried in an unmarked communal grave in the local cemetery which we were able to locate and MIL was able to put a gravestone on.

Of course I'm not sure what the procedure would be in Ireland but if you have names and date of death (even if approximate) the Records Office may be able to help.

I’m not sure. Again in England I know of someone who this happened to and again baby was buried in a communal grave. I think it would be worth talking to the parish priest?

My mam had one in Ireland in the eighties and while I think records were kept hers was not recorded

I think it would depend on the gestation the baby was born at.
Sadly such babies were often “medical waste”.....I’m so sorry.
The Church may very well have a burial record but possibly just recorded as “a baby born to (your mum) & (your dad)” and the date.
I really wish you well on this quest, I hope you find peace.

That’s a funny (as in strange) thing to find out as an adult. My MIL told me when I was around 20 weeks pregnant that she had lost a baby at that gestation whilst on holiday in France, would have been about 1977-ish. She had to go to hospital (assume she was bleeding), which is where it happened. She was never even told the sex and I think never even saw the baby. I’ve always wondered what records actually exist and whether the baby was a boy or girl. Maybe no records because i guess it would have been seen as a late miscarriage. DH didn’t even know about this before she told me; he was then born after this baby. MIL is quite private about all medical matters, so probably has hardly ever talked about this, even (especially!) with FIL . Hope you can find some answers.

Thanks for your replies.
I'm not feeling upset about it because it was a long time ago.
I guess I'm partly curious because my mother was a much more anxious person than her siblings and I wonder if this played a part.
To compound matters my aunt said she also had at least one miscarriage.

Your post has led me to find my stillborn baby sister tonight. I'd previously contacted our local council offices to no avail and seeing @MegBusset 's post has led me to look at Local records online. I've just paid £20 to download the register and I've found the grave number. She was buried with two other stillborn babies, how sad. My mum is still alive so now I have to broach it with her. In those days the hospital just said they'd deal with it and my mum was sent home, the baby was at 39 weeks! I'm definitely going to visit the cemetery in any case.
@Catterpillar I have family from the west of Ireland and I'm pretty sure the local church would have a record. Do you know the name of the town or village? Good luck to you in your search. I'm sitting here feeling pretty emotional but so happy I've found her

@Catterpillar
alittlelifetime.ie/about-allf-2/ I've just found this, I hope it helps.

Often stillborn babies were placed in the arms of a recently deceased young woman & no record of the burial or cremation place .

There was a thing in Ireland about not burying unbaptised babies in Catholic cemeteries so I doubt it would be in church records, OP, I'm sorry. I have elderly cousins whose siblings were buried on their farm somewhere, and they got a priest to bless all the fields because it was upsetting them. I think those stillbirths would have been 1930s though.

If she had the baby in hospital there might be records there. The hospitals had arrangements with public cemeteries - well in Dublin anyway, and I think Limerick (I'm vague on this as it was just being discussed on the radio one day years ago).

If you Google unbaptised babies burial Ireland you'll find how sad it is. I hope you don't find it very upsetting.

If you have any family left in the area they might know where babies were buried.

My mother’s stillborn older brother was buried by my grandfather at night in the local cillín. There is a record of his death, though — he was full term.

Meant to say that this was the mid-1940s.

But cillíní in the vicinity still had burials in the 70s.

My mum had 2 still births full term in the 50’s. Not recorded and she never saw them didn’t know what happened to them. It affected her her whole life and was one of the last things she talked about before she died. Thank god it isn’t like that now.

Most rural areas in the west of Ireland would have had a cillín for burying unbaptised babies, as a pp said. Sometimes it was right beside the local church graveyard, just on the other side of the wall. Other times it was located in what seems like the middle of nowhere and might just look like a field, but everyone in the locality knew what it was and there would often be flowers left there. Many cillíní were in continuous use for hundreds of years and some are marked on (old) ordnance survey maps as historic graveyards.

So if you know anyone in the locale of your mother's house, OP, your best bet might be to ask them about a cillín in the area. A lot of this kind of information still lives in local culture rather than in official records.

Sorry if this gets distressingly specific, but sometimes if a stillborn baby was very recently deceased (e.g. passed during delivery) then someone present at the birth would baptise the baby and it say it lived a few moments, so a church burial would be allowed. So there's a small possibility that might have happened.

@MarDhea that seems to have happened my sister who was stillborn in the mid-1970s. We were always told she had been baptised and is buried in the churchyard with my grandfather, although my mother was clear that she had not been born alive. If this was the case I’m glad, as I think my mother took a lot of comfort from knowing she had been christened and where her resting place was.

If you put surname, district and year range into search engine at civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/civil-search.jsp, any potential death certificate will show. Site requires youto pass a 'captcha' (so it knows you are not a robot), but is free to use and view the records.

Meant to add, in results returned, a deceased infant will usually have 'unknown' against forename.

OP it would probably depend on where the baby was born. Our neighbour had a stillborn baby at full term in the 1970s and he was definitely given a name and buried but didn't have a funeral as such but in those situations the hospitals would have records as obviously the woman was a patient so the church wouldn't necessarily have recorded it as there may not have been an actual funeral.

My uncle, who died of Covid recently, took me to his twins grave. Just a stone on a cliff. Stillborn so no record or Catholic burial.

As mentioned above, some graveyards had a portion set aside that was designated as unconsecrated (not blessed). Unbaptised babies were buried there. In later years some of these side areas have been marked out. I think in some cases victims of suicide were also buried in these unconsecrated areas as suicide was seen as an offence and a sin. Otherwise the remains of the babies were often buried in fields sadly.
Thankfully times have moved on somewhat.