Alan O’Keeffe
Many child institutions have a grim history but former staff of St Patrick’s seek only to reassure, writes
We loved you, hugged you, and sang to you
CATHERINE Clarke last laid eyes on Paul Smith when he was a toddler. Forty years later, she saw he had grown into a tall and handsome middle-aged man.
He had asked to meet her. In a popular Dublin restaurant, he asked her questions and listened intently to the former children’s nurse recalling memories of caring for him and other youngsters waiting to be selected for adoption.
Catherine is one of several former nurses who have come forward with their recollections and old photographs of children in their care at St Patrick’s Infant Hospital, Temple Hill, in Blackrock, Co Dublin, which closed in 1986.
Paul now treasures a photograph that shows him as a child sitting on her lap. It was a photograph Catherine kept safe for 40 years and which he has now shared with the Sunday Independent.
“It was very emotional to meet him and see him smile again,” said Catherine (60).
A new appeal is being made to former Temple Hill nurses for any old photographs or mementos of children in their care.
The appeal was launched by former nurse Cathy Garten, who worked there in the mid-1970s. In recent years she began inviting her former colleagues to offer their old photographs of children to the adoptions and tracing section of the state child welfare agency Tusla, to be passed on to those who featured in the pictures.
Cathy took the initiative after hearing a radio interview in which a woman said she had been adopted from St Patrick’s Hospital, a centre for children for adoption.
As it was closed down, the woman said she had no idea if it was a nice place or if she had ever been hugged and loved while there. Cathy telephoned the radio show to reassure her that she and all the children were hugged, loved and sung to.
Cathy offered her own collection of photographs to Tusla so the agency could pass them on to former residents of the hospital.
She also had keepsakes of old identity tags of some of the children, which she passed on.
She set up a Temple Hill Nurses Facebook page and, with other colleagues, organised reunions of nursing staff which have been attended by 80 former Temple Hill nurses.
Hundreds of photographs of children have been gathered at these events and passed on to Tusla. And people who have received the photographs have expressed a huge sense of gratitude to the former nurses.
Many of the old staff included letters with the photographs, offered to receive phone calls or to meet those who appeared in the pictures.
The grim history of some children’s institutions in Ireland many years ago may have given rise to worries about the standard of care at St Patrick’s.
But Cathy (65) wants those who were adopted from Temple Hill to know they were “loved unconditionally” and enjoyed high standards of food, clothing and living conditions.
Many of the nurses were young trainees who bonded with the children as their “second mothers”, she said. From their small pay packets, many would buy gifts for the children, she added.
Cathy recalls the sense of loss when one of the first babies she had looked after and loved was finally adopted.
She was glad to meet him in recent times to assure him he had been loved and cared for in St Patrick’s.
Cathy said she felt sorry for the young mothers whom, she believed, were pressured by family, and wider society, to hand over their babies for adoption.
She remembers some young mothers, who were allowed brief visits to see their children, became hysterical with grief when leaving.
In 1971, more than 70pc of children born to single mothers were placed for adoption. By 1990, that figure had fallen to 8pc.
Temple Hill was run by the Irish Sisters of Charity. The religious order also separately ran St Patrick’s Guild Adoption Society, at a different address, which was mired in controversy in later years.
Tusla took possession of the society’s historical records and reported that it found at least 126 births between 1946 and 1969 were incorrectly registered by the society.
In those specific cases, the name of a person who was not a birth parent of the child was registered by the society as a parent and/ or the name of the birth mother was not entered in the register as the mother.
All the nurses who spoke to the Sunday Independent worked in a later era at Temple Hill, which was a separate institution. The old photographs of the children in Temple Hill showed they had the best of care, they said.
Lor Parslow (61) was a staff nurse who worked at Temple Hill between 1977 and 1985. She has worked closely with Cathy in organising reunions and gathering photographs to pass on to the children through Tusla.
“The babies gave us all so much joy. We loved them unconditionally,” she said.
She said she could not help falling in love with a little girl whom she cared for from the age of two weeks old.
She recalled how she took the child for outings into Dublin when she became a toddler. When she was adopted, Lor was both happy and heartbroken.
Lor agreed to meet a man who had been adopted from Temple Hill and he was relieved by her recollections and photographs that he and the other children had received excellent care.
Caroline Dempsey (38), a Dubliner now living in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, was the last child to live in Temple Hill before it closed.
She was three years old when she was finally fostered. She retained some memories of the place. She was delighted earlier this year when she was put in touch with Lor, who told her she remembered her well.
“I was thrilled when
Lor told me she actually remembered me. She told me I was a lovely child with a gorgeous smile,” she said.
Caroline said she also received a photograph of herself and a letter from a former nurse who was living in Canada.
The letter reassured her that she and all the children were loved at Temple Hill.
“I feel really grateful to Cathy and to Lor and to all the former nurses who have taken the trouble to do all this for us,” she said.
Meanwhile, Paul Smith, who met former nurse Catherine in Dublin, said he had felt emotional the day they got together.
He praised all the women who were giving people precious photographs from a time in their lives which had been largely unknown to them.
Paul, who lives in Greystones, Co Wicklow, discovered after his marriage that he had three siblings who were also given up for adoption by his biological mother and all have since been reunited.
What Catherine and the other nurses were doing was “wonderful”, he said.
‘Mothers allowed brief visits were hysterical with grief when they had to leave them’