I’ll never find my baby’s grave
Distraught Ann fears she will die before knowing truth about child
A WOMAN who has spent 50 years searching for her baby fears she’ll die without finding out what happened to her daughter.
Ann O’gorman said she was horrified to learn this week the sale of the notorious Bessborough mother and baby home in Blackrock, Co Cork, had moved a step closer.
The 66-year-old fears the unmarked graves of 800 babies will be lost for ever after the Sisters Of The Sacred Heart Of Jesus And Mary backed the deal.
Ann, from Limerick, told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “I felt sick to my stomach when I heard they were selling up and moving. We knew it was coming but it’s still a shock. I feel now I will never get to find my baby girl Evelyn’s grave, or get the chance to say goodbye to her.
“I can’t stop thinking about all the lost babies that are not accounted for, I’m sure their mothers feel the very same way as I do.
“I know their pain, it’s just never ending... and the nuns are getting away with it.” Earlier this year Ann reported her baby as missing to gardai in Cork and called on them to investigate Evelyn’s death in 1972.
She heard her baby cry in the delivery room but without pain relief she passed out in agony and when she woke three days later the nuns told her the infant was dead.
But they refused to show her where her baby was buried and inaccuracies on her documents have left Ann deeply suspicious.
Evelyn’s cause of death was listed as prematurity, yet in another entry on the death certificate the birth is described as “full-term” and “normal”.
Ann, who entered Bessborough as a frightened 17-year-old, added she fears she will never know if her baby girl died or was illegally adopted in the US. She said: “I have a grave ready for her at the family plot and I visit it all the time. I’ve held vigils at Bessborough.
“I know the angels are there with her but I need to find her. My health isn’t good and I can’t cope with the stress of it all. I can’t sleep with the anxiety.
“Every couple of hours I bolt up in the bed with nightmares. It’s like a neverending nightmare.
“I know everyone has their troubles but I feel this is going to finish me. I feel I’m constantly crying on the inside. I can’t cry any more, all the tears are gone.
“All the pain and the hurt is unbearable. Survivors are here to support each other but at the end of the day what we really want is answers.”
On Tuesday The Sisters Of The Sacred Hearts Of Jesus And Mary order was accused of abandoning its moral
compass after confirming it was ceasing involvement with a support centre on the grounds of Bessborough.
Staff condemned the move as a “run and grab all attempt” by the nuns who they said are due to pocket €12million from the sale “despite a long legacy of questionable services for mothers and babies in Ireland”.
A statement issued by a PR company on behalf of the religious order said that “after much consideration and soul searching, they have decided to cease their involvement with the centre”.
The order announced in 2017 its intention to sell a significant portion of the lands and the sale is ongoing.
The 40-acre campus is considered prime development land. However, more than 800 babies are believed to be buried there in unmarked graves. A report issued by the Mother And Baby Home Commission Of Inquiry in February confirmed 900 children died there.
But the MBHCOI said after five years of “extensive inquiries” it could only find the final resting place for 64.
The Sacred Heart Home opened in Bessborough in 1922. Women who gave birth were denied pain relief during labour or stitches after birth.
Survivors’ groups have called for a full geophysical examination of the site and said the religious order should be questioned by gardai.
Catherine Coffey, who escaped from Bessborough as a teenager just weeks before she was due to give birth, condemned the nuns’ “heartless” actions. She told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “This sale of part of the grounds is only the thin end of the wedge.
“A portion of that money should be frozen so they can investigate that land and for a memorial to the babies, some place survivors can go to remember them. This is not about money, this is about getting closure. No amount of money is going to give Ann O’gorman or any of the others any peace. “We have a map that clearly shows the children’s burial grounds. There are 800 babies buried up there, 800 babies who are missing and no one cares. “This is like pouring concrete on Auschwitz. They annihilated generations of women and children, now they are erasing us from history. “We saw what they did with Tuam. Bessborough is within the remit of the Commission. “They have the opportunity to set a precedent here and say, ‘Hold on a minute, you need to investigate the land’ before anyone is allowed to sell or build.”
They annihilated generations of women & kids & now are erasing us from history
CATHERINE COFFEY
YESTERDAY