‘We must find graves of the Bessborough babies left forgotten for so long’
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin said he has “deep concerns” over proposed residential developments on the site of the former Bessborough Mother and Baby Home – with infant graves on the sprawling Cork site still unidentified.
Mr Martin has been challenged by mothers who gave birth at Bessborough to help suspend all development work until the grave sites are properly located.
Of the more than 900 babies who died at Bessborough or in Cork hospitals, having been transferred from the mother and babies home over seven decades, only 70 have known individual burial sites.
Three-quarters of all babies born at Bessborough in 1943 died without reaching their first birthday.
Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman has already expressed concerns over the proposed Bessborough residential developments.
The Taoiseach said identifying baby burial sites should be a priority.
“There needs to be first of all an examination, and the proper robust identification of the burial sites of all children,” he said.
“I would have deep concerns about construction going ahead, in the absence of that having been established and protected, and measures taken to protect such a burial site.
“It’s perhaps premature at this stage to talk about legislation on the issue, but the Bill that the minister is bringing forward in respect of Tuam can be applied to other sites as well.”
Women who endured Bessborough slated as “an insult” the decision not to sanction a full excavation of the entire Blackrock site to locate every grave of the 923 children who died there.
One woman who fearlessly campaigned for over 30 years to trace the grave of her infant daughter at Bessborough said a detailed site excavation was the least the Government owed to families.
Ann O’Gorman from Limerick gave birth to her baby daughter Evelyn in the Cork facility in 1971 when she was just 17.
Ms O’Gorman was never told where her baby was buried and has no marked plot to visit.
She never saw her baby’s body and, for a time, even wondered whether the little
girl survived and was instead offered for a secret adoption.
The Mother and Baby Home Commission (MBHC) previously said it was not considered feasible to excavate the 60 acres remaining of the Bessborough estate that, back in the 1940s, extended to over 200 acres.
“It’s an insult to us all,” Ms O’Gorman said.
“I’m begging for the ground to be examined and marked for these angels.”
Ms O’Gorman said her message now was simple – that justice must be done for the children who died at Bessborough and other notorious mother and baby homes.
“Please help us – it is not right what is happening. It is what all the babies and the mothers at Bessborough deserve. They were forgotten for so long. They deserve to be treated with the respect they were never shown there. We need closure.”
Bessborough – which at one time was Ireland’s largest mother and baby home – is infamous for having one of the highest infant mortality rates of any such facility. Campaigner Catherine Coffey O’Brien said development at
the site should be suspended pending site investigations.
“What we want from the council is no rezoning of property within Bessborough for development – we want this investigated properly,” she said.
“We want an independent body to come in, excavate the land, check it and make sure to find these babies.”
Sinn Féin TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire is set to make a formal submission to Cork City Council and An Bord Pleanála on the proposed development which includes 179 residential units.
Planning permission is being sought from the council for 67 apartments at the site and, separately, to An Bord Pleanála for 179 residential units.
Mr Ó Laoghaire said the development would clearly be “hurtful” and “very insensitive” to those with associations to Bessborough – and he called
on the Taoiseach to support the move.
The developers involved said they will now carefully study the Mother and Baby Home report released on Tuesday. Bessborough suffered not only from a high infant mortality rate in the 1930s-50s, but was also the focus of controversial Irish vaccine trials.
Several mother and baby homes had an infant mortality rate of 55pc – six times higher than that for babies in ordinary Irish society between 1930 and 1950. Research by historian Michael Dwyer also revealed that 2,051 children drawn from the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary facilities at Bessborough and Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea were part of secret vaccine trials.
Mari Steed, now based in the US, was born at Bessborough in 1960 and was used as part of the vaccine trials.
“We were used as human guinea pigs. We carried this hurt with us – it is very tough to say. I know a lot of fellow, as we call ourselves, banished babies.”
Ms Steed only made the vaccine trial discovery when she was searching through her records.
‘They deserve to be treated with the respect they were never shown’