The Big Dig 2021 — Update 1

Under the rules of the medieval Catholic Church, there could be no burial in consecrated ground for stillborn or miscarried babies because they had not been baptised.   The same was probably true for illegitimate children who died.  How did the bereaved parents cope with the knowledge that their lost child had been consigned to eternal Limbo?   Regrettably, the practice continued in Scotland after the Reformation until fairly recent times.
Diggers on Lismore this year were disturbed to find a preponderance of infant burials round the Sanctuary or Eala Stone, including some that were clearly newly born or miscarried, and some which showed little respect at the time of burial.  This was unexpected, but had we consulted Alexander Carmichael’s notebooks, which included traditions he collected on Lismore in 1870, before embarking on the dig, we would have been prepared:

S[outh] of the Eala near the Manse well was a small bury[ing] pl[ace] 12×12 y[a]rds with a wall round it where all the un baptised child[ren] were bur[ie]d. John Roys fath[er] in law told him that he saw the child of Duncan MacIlle chonail Bailenango’an bur[ied] here. He was the last per[son] 100 y[ea]rs ago.

(Carmichael Watson CW 106 fo.12r)

According to McCabe (2010):

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.

Her finding that: archaeological survey shows a high affinity for abandoned holy ground as host sites for infant burial grounds fits well with our experience on Lismore.  We know that the Early Church cemetery was abandoned at some point, as the area shows evidence of domestic and craft activities, including several hearths, in the upper layers.  It looks as if the unbaptised Lismore infants were buried in the area round the Stone because of its earlier role as a cemetery and in the hope that the earlier consecration might still hold.  We will know a great deal more once the bones have been studied and, possibly, dated.

Sources:
McCabe M. (2010)  University of Glasgow), Through the backdoor to salvation: infant burial grounds in the early modern Gaelhealtachd
Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group https://nomadit.co.uk/conference/tag2010/paper/5721