Probe urged for exhumed bodies on Magdalen plot

THE circumstances surrounding the exhumation and cremation of the bodies of 155 women taken from a Magdalen Laundry graveyard must be investigated by the Department of Justice.

The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) yesterday urged the department to investigate what happened in 1993 when the bodies buried on a plot of land at High Park, Drumcondra, Dublin were removed. All but one of the bodies were cremated at Glasnevin Cemetery.

Death certificates existed for only 75 of the 133 bodies found initially, even though it is a criminal offence to fail to register a death that happens on an owner’s premises. An additional 22 bodies were also found.

The 155 bodies were removed from the graveyard because the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity were selling the land to a property developer. They had been buried over the previous 100 years.

NWCI chairperson Mary Kelly said it was shameful that women had not been accounted for by name or by certification.

“There should be no legal exemptions for anybody. We have got to be accountable for both the living and the dead. We have a moral responsibility to at least put the facts in place,” she said.

Ms Kelly listed a series of questions that needed answers:

Why did the Department of the Environment issue an exhumation licence for the bodies of women for whom there were no death certificates?

Why did the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity not have death certificates for all of the women’s bodies?

Were medical officers called to the laundry when women died there? If they were, why were death certificates not issued?

When it became clear that unaccounted for bodies had been exhumed was the coroner’s office contacted?

What are the implications for women and men seeking their natural mothers and for the families of these women if the facts are not established and recorded?

Ms Kelly said the facts of this case must be revealed and made public. Those responsible must be brought to account.

“As a society we have a moral responsibility to honour these women in death whom we as a society so dishonoured in life. We cannot do this unless the facts are established and this task is the responsibility of the Department of Justice,” she said.

Unless such women were identified the quest by adopted men and women to find their natural mothers was almost impossible.

“It is just such a sad saga and it seems we have learned very little from our past,” said Ms Kelly.