over ‘disrespectful’ and baby homes
‘I was mocked and abused for having a mixed-race baby’
SHEILA O’Byrne was sent to a mother and baby home in 1976 after becoming pregnant with a mixed-race baby.
She said the stigma of getting pregnant at 19 in 1970s Ireland was too much.
Ms O’Byrne, who now lives in Cork, grew up in Dublin in a ‘very innocent’ environment.
The 64-year- old told the Irish Daily Mail yesterday: ‘Nobody told us about the birds and the bees so I was shocked when I got pregnant and my daddy, who loved me so much, went mad.’
Ms O’Byrne went to t he St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on Dublin’s Navan Road, because she had nowhere else to go and she didn’t want to ‘bring shame to the family name’. She spent a year at the facility – where her baby could be ‘cruelly’ taken once he was born – working 16 hours a day as a ‘skivvy’ and a child-minder. She said that she received ‘abominable’ abuse for having a mixed-race baby.
‘They treated us horrifically,’ Ms O’Byrne recalled. ‘I have been beaten and one nun even tried to drown me for talking about the abuse. I looked after ill and dying babies, especially the ones in the “Reject Ward”. They called it that – it’s where they placed all the mixed-race and disabled babies. “Bring that to the Reject Ward,” they would say. When my beautiful mixed-race baby boy was born, they said, “what is that?” ’
When Ms O’Byrne went into labour, she was told to ‘walk around the grounds’.
She said: ‘I didn’t know what was happening. I was in the height of agony and I was being told I was paying for my sins now.
‘They didn’t give you any painkillers and they didn’t care that you were in agony. It was boiling hot that day and bees swarmed around me but nobody came near me for hours.
‘In the end, they had to call for the doctor because I was having difficulties and it turned out I had to have a forceps birth – I was really lucky to not have died.’
Her son was put up for adoption t wo weeks af t er s he gave birth, and she was ‘never allowed to hold him’.
‘The only time I was allowed to touch my baby, the nurse brought him up into the chapel for his Christening,’ she said.
‘ “Just hold him in your arms once, quickly” – then he was taken. “Back to work,” she’d say.
Ms O’Byrne said: ‘ My daddy gave me the money to pay for the Christening. And then do you know what Mr Priest said to me?
‘He told me, “Well, Sheila, if you haven’t got the money, there’s other ways we can sort this out” - and he reached over and he touched my left breast.
‘I said: “You’re alright, Father, I have my money and I’ll pay in full”.’
She said the abuse she suffered at the facility resulted in her ‘not able to have a baby again’.
It is estimated that up to 3,000 children died at St Patrick’s from 1904 until it closed in 1985. Many died as a result of vaccine trials and other mistreatment, including malnutrition.
Many were buried in a mass grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, known as the Angels Plot, but the remains of several hundred babies were donated for medical research.
Ms O’Byrne has never sought, nor been offered, compensation for her abuse but she says she will ‘not stop campaigning’ over how the i nformation gathered by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission would be used.
Much of the evidence was given in private and is legally protected.
‘One nun even tried to drown me’
A database of 60,000 records was set to be transferred to the child and family agency Tusla, while the remaining records will be sealed for 30 years.
Campaigners and survivors said this would deny them an opportunity to f i nd out more about themselves and their history. Ms O’Byrne added: ‘The other survivors and I will continue to stand with the victims until we are given the answers we deserve – no matter how long that will take.’
Ms O’Byrne told her story on RTÉ Radio 1’s Liveline yesterday, where her story broke the hearts of listeners.
Many survivors took to social media afterwards to share their own experiences.