Former gardener ‘haunted’ by tiny bones he dug up
A FORMER gardener who worked at Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home has revealed how he discovered a ‘large amount of small bones’ after he was asked to tidy up the angel’s plot on the grounds.
Michael Donovan, 52, from Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, worked for the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the mid-Eighties after the mother and baby home had closed. He was in his early 20s when he began working there.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail, Mr Donovan said he has been ‘haunted’ for many years by the images of tiny bones being dug up when they brought a tractor on to the area to turn the sod.
He said he wanted to speak out now as he loves his home town of Roscrea and feels the community has been through enough in the past few years and locals need ‘clearer information’ about what happened in Sean Ross Abbey. He has also given a statement to gardaí and provided evidence to the Commission of Inquiry.
He said: ‘I am not saying what I found were children’s bones because I don’t know. But I do know it haunted me for years.
‘The Commission was set up to investigate these things and all I’m doing is telling them.
‘Back then the angels’ plot on the grounds where the babies of the mothers were buried when they died was overgrown and needed to be tidied up. We did a tiny bit of ploughing to get it ready for grass and we ploughed it with a tractor.
‘We had just turned the sod when we noticed the tiny bones. There was a lot of bones, they were tiny bones which were scattered on the ground after we turned the sod. There were no skulls or anything like that, and they were around two or three feet down. So we stopped straight away.’
Mr Donovan said he did not know if the head gardener informed anyone but they never returned to continue their work. The area was left unfinished and he left his job a short time afterwards.
‘It was not something you talked about back then, but it was always in my mind and I was concerned,’ he said.
He said the people who were affected by the mother and baby homes needed the truth. ‘They need to tell us what happened there. Maybe they could release clearer information and talk to the people about it. People with no birth certs who grew up there are trying to get answers.
‘A proper scope is needed and things need to be checked out to put people’s minds to rest, so that we can all move on.’
When the Irish Daily Mail first asked the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary about Mr Donovan’s story in 2017, they said: ‘Our sisters still live at Sean Ross and maintain the consecrated babies cemetery to which you refer.
‘The cemetery is visited regularly by people associated with Sean Ross. The suggestion of the discovery of babies’ bones at the babies cemetery in Sean Ross, during the work being carried out in the 1980s, would be a surprise to all of us and to our staff who worked there at this time.
‘All the babies that regrettably died at Sean Ross were interred in coffins to a significant depth and we have no accounts whatever of these coffins being disturbed.’