Expert: Treat Bessborough as a potential crime scene 

UCC bioarchaeologist Dr Barra Ó Donnabháin said if planning for apartment scheme is approved, bulldozing a place of burial 'would add to the wrongs of the past' 

UCC bioarchaeologist Dr Barra Ó Donnabháin said Bessborough graveyard 'a site of national and international importance and it has to be handled carefully'. Picture: Larry Cummins

An Irish expert who helped identify the remains of victims of the Srebrenica atrocity says the Bessborough mother and baby home site in Cork is a potential crime scene that must be treated with sensitivity and respect.

UCC bioarchaeologist Dr Barra Ó Donnabháin said babies were dying of starvation in Bessborough during the 1940s and 50s, with "marasmus" listed as a cause of death – a good indicator of abuse in the form of neglect.

In the Republic, a criminal case becomes historical after 75 years but Mr Ó Donnabháin said given the timeframe involved in the Bessborough infant deaths, there is potential for some cases to be investigated.

He made his comments ahead of a planning decision from An Bórd Pleanála on a large apartment scheme earmarked for a privately-owned site next to an area of former Bessborough lands marked on historic maps as "Children’s Burial Ground".

“This is not a normal graveyard,” Dr Ó Donnabháin said.

If development on the site is approved, bulldozing a place of burial for that development would just add to the wrongs of the past.

“This is a site of traumatic events. It is a site of national and international importance and it has to be handled carefully.” 

Srebrenica massacre

Dr Ó Donnabháin led an international archaeological excavation of burial grounds on the 19th-century Spike Island prison site in Cork Harbour between 2012 and 2018. He also worked in 2005 on the identification of remains of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia.

An expert on the archaeological interpretation of human skeletal remains, he has offered his insight to the Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance (CSSA) which is campaigning against development on former Bessborough lands pending more investigation.

Some 923 infants died in Bessborough or in hospital after being transferred from Bessborough between 1922 and 1998 but the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes has been able to establish the burial place of only 64.

CSSA believe that the missing 859 are buried on Bessborough land where a ‘Children’s Burial Ground’ is marked on Ordnance Survey maps made in the 1940s and 50s, the decades when the death rate at Bessborough was at its highest.

But Dr Ó Donnabháin said those who are seeking answers about where the missing infants are buried should be prepared for the fact that the ground may not yield those answers.

'The CSI effect'

"It’s the CSI effect. There is a level of expectation created by certain TV programmes and movies that just may not be realistic, in terms of what analysis can produce.” 

Infant bones are poorly mineralised – they are not as dense as adult bones. They don’t survive well over time. 

"What we have found following excavations of historic burial sites, including even cilliní (which were used primarily for stillborn and unbaptised infants) where we know young children were buried, is that there is often an under-representation of the remains of the very young.

“It doesn’t mean they weren’t buried there. It just means that the bones didn’t survive.” 

He said excavations at Bessborough could lead to the discovery of materials associated with the burials, such as nappy pins or buttons, but it is possible that infant bones do not survive.

The questions which then arise are complex and challenging, given the sensitivities involved, he said.

Any thorough archaeological investigation for infant burials or remains would have to be done by hand rather than by machine testing, he said.

If remains have survived and are found, he said it could prove difficult to extract samples to provide a DNA sequence. Extracting DNA might involve the destruction of those remains, and could ultimately prove inconclusive, he warned.

Absence of a DNA database

And in the absence of a DNA database against which to compare those samples, he said one would have to ask why all the excavation and DNA work would be required in the first instance.

On balance, he said the best approach would be to leave whatever may be buried, in place.

If however, planning is approved, any excavations in sensitive areas should be done by hand rather than testing with a mechanical digger and for that work to be overseen by an expert who knows what infant remains look like, he said.

The developers should have to commit in advance to fund post-excavation analysis on any identified remains that may be required, he added.