Children who died in mother and baby home remembered

SURVIVORS of Ireland’s largest mother and baby home gathered in Glasnevin Cemetery yesterday for the first memorial to the children who died in the controversial home.

It’s estimated that between 9,000 and 12,000 young unmarried mothers had been sent to St Patrick’s Mother and Baby home on the Navan Road in Dublin, between 1904 and 1985.

And around 2,500 children are believed to have died there and been buried among the 60,000 children in a pauper’s grave in Glasnevin, according to adoption groups.

A gathering of about 50 people met at the cemetery yesterday to lay flowers and read poems in memory of those who died in the home.

Organiser and former resident Clodagh Malone, from Beyond Adoption Ireland, said she was pleased with the turn-out.

‘It is a very difficult time for those who have gone through this home and this is the first time we have gathered to remember all those who died and were buried here,’ she said. ‘We now have a place to hold a service every year for mothers and children who were forgotten in this controversial home.’

Several high-profile people were born in St Patrick’s including artist Kevin Sharkey and 4fm broadcaster Niall Boylan, as well as long-term campaigner David Kinsella. Speaking at the service yesterday, David said he was a ‘very sick child’ and only for his adoptive mother he may have died. ‘I was one of the children who was used in vaccine trials and I spent a lot of time in hospital,’ he said.

‘What happened in these homes should never have happened and I could have been one of those babies in the grave.’