A cold, lonely burial for ‘unknown baby’ discovered on beach
Campaigner ‘sickened’ by Belle’s undignified funeral
THE wind howled through the trees as the tiny little white box was laid in the ground by two men. She was officially buried under the name ‘unknown baby’.
The discovery of the child’s body on a beach in Balbriggan, north Co. Dublin, close to Christmas last year, made national headlines but when the child was buried last week there were no mourners.
It was around 9am last Friday when a coroner’s ambulance drove up beside the angels plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in north Dublin carrying a little wooden box.
Onlookers thought the burial, which lasted less than three minutes, was unusual: there were no women present, which would normally indicate a grieving mother, aunt or grandmother, and there was no gathering of any description. No priest, no prayers, no flowers – but saddest of all, there were no tears.
The only people present at the burial were two men, who pulled back the large green covering over the newly opened grave before placing the white coffin into the ground and walking away.
It was a very lonely sight, perhaps as dignified as it could be but it seemed empty, grey and sad like the burial of a child who had no-one left on this earth.
‘It’s the little baby who was found dead on the beach in Balbriggan. She’s an unknown baby,’ is what I was told when I later asked at the graveyard about it.
The little girl, known as ‘Belle’ by gardaí, hit the headlines after her lifeless body was discovered on Bell beach in Balbriggan at 10am on Sunday, December 16.
She was wrapped in a cloth when a beach clean-up volunteer found her. Foul play was ruled out and a postmortem showed the child had died before she was born.
Gardaí believe little Belle was left on the beach less than 24 hours after her birth. She was partly covered by sand because the winds were so high.
Her tiny remains were taken to Temple Street Children’s Hospital before being removed to the morgue. No-one ever came forward to claim the child but DNA tests were carried out in order to find her family and a trawl of CCTV was undertaken by gardaí.
A public appeal was made by gardaí and Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, for the child’s mother to come forward, saying she would be treated with compassion and care. A week after the news of the discovery was made, over 100 people held a vigil on the Bell beach to honour the child.
Speaking at a press conference, Garda Sergeant Fiona Savidge from Balbriggan Garda station said she wanted to thank people in ‘the general area for the assistance’. However, last Friday, noone except a gravedigger and an undertaker were present at Belle’s burial when she was being laid to rest shortly after she was released from a morgue.
Instead, the infant was given a pauper’s funeral funded by the Department of Social Protection. These have long been lonely funerals that are usually carried out in the early hours.
In his report, titled Human Rights Issues at the Former Site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, published last year, Special Rapporteur on Child Protection Dr Geoffrey Shannon wrote: ‘There has long since been recognition of the right to a decent burial.’
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail last night, Catherine Corless, who uncovered the names of the 796 children who are believed to be buried at the Tuam mother and baby home in Galway, said she was ‘horrified’ to learn no-one attended the child’s burial.
‘I am sickened by this. It is like nothing has changed,’ she said. ‘We are fighting for justice and dignity for the way 796 children in Tuam were buried, and on Friday we have another child buried – OK, in a grave in an angels plot, but with no social workers, no gardaí, no-one at all. It is very sad and very cold. Why didn’t someone make sure the child had someone there to given them a proper funeral? I am in disbelief. I am lost for words – the little child needs to have a plaque or something. It’s not right at all.’
Members of the public began to leave flowers on the child’s grave when news trickled through that she had been buried. Fr Hugh Kavanagh, from the Rowlagh and Neilstown parish in Clondalkin, Dublin, later blessed the child’s grave over the weekend, and told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘I received a call from a member of the public who felt something should be done for the child so I went to the grave and blessed it with holy water and said a few prayers.’ news@dailymail.ie
‘It is like nothing has changed’