As we traveled through Ireland, it occurred to me we weren't passing by many cemeteries, especially given the thousands of years of history and occupancy. On Inis Sheer (Inis Oirr), there was a very small cemetery perched up on a hill overlooking the island and facing the bay. Like most of the other cemeteries we passed, the stones looked ancient and there were far fewer than I would have expected. What I learned later in the trip was that the Irish people select one plot and bury family members one on top of the other, believing that their bones should remain together. Grave stones frequently have the names, birth and death dates of multiple family members. The ceremony surrounding a burial is deeply routed in tradition; a funeral is often as elaborate as a wedding might be in the states. During the famine, families could not afford the cost of burial and mass graves were a necessity for health reasons. There are many accounts of families bringing their dead to the mass graves in the middle of the night to avoid the embarrassment of burying a loved one without the proper tradition and ceremony.
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