Mother and Baby home group outraged at €105m apartment plan at Bessborough
The Littles Angels Plot, in Bessborough, Blackrock. in Cork city. A support group for the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home are furious with plans to build 420 apartments on part of the estate. Picture: Jim Coughlan.
Members of a support group for the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home are ‘outraged’ at €105m plans to construct 420 apartments on the Bessborough estate in Cork.
Earlier this year, Estuary View Enterprises (EVE) lodged combined Strategic Housing Development (SHD) plans with An Bord Pleanála to construct 420 apartments plus a café and creche on the site in Blackrock in Cork city.
EVE is today the largest landowner in the Bessborough estate with its block totalling just over 40 acres. The new combined scheme follows the appeals board last year refusing planning permission to MWB Two Ltd for 246 apartments on a different parcel of land in the Bessborough estate south of the proposed development site.
As part of EVE's ‘TheMeadowSHD', the applicants want planning permission for 280 buy-to-sell apartments in four blocks ranging from six to 10 storeys in height, while the companion ‘TheFarmSHD’ provides for 140 buy-to-sell apartments in three blocks up to five storeys.
The Mother and Baby home operated there from 1922 to 1999 and more than 900 children died from various causes while residents in the home, but only 64 have marked graves.
The Bessborough Mother & Baby Home Support Group — whose members include Philomena Lee — has told An Bord Pleanála it is objecting to the plans across a number of grounds.
It says "the undisputed fact is that 859 children registered as born in Bessborough are missing".
In the objection lodged on behalf of the Support Group by Carmel Cantwell, she says “adoptees come from all over the world to visit the place they were born in and reflect on how lucky they were to get out alive”.
She added: “Mothers come to reflect on their time there and grieve for their children lost to adoption or whose burial places are unknown.
"There is too much ambiguity surrounding burials at Bessborough and until a full independent investigation is carried out to determine the truth there should be no further construction on the grounds.”
The group says planning permission was refused last year to MWB Two Ltd “as there was too much ambiguity around burials possibly being in the area proposed for development”.
It says this uncertainty applies to the EVE proposed development.
The group says EVE is proposing to do forensic archaeological testing in conjunction with the construction.
“This is a means to an end to achieve a building development," said Ms Cantwell.
"This is hurtful to us as it is not about finding nor honouring the missing children and their families.”
In the planning statement lodged with the plans on behalf of EVE, it says “the applicants recognise the sensitives associated with the legacy of the former Mother and Baby Home”.
It says there is no evidence to suggest that there are any children buried on the subject lands.
In advance of submitting the application, the applicants consulted with the Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance (CSSA).
“The CSSA has confirmed it has no objection to the principle of the proposed development. While the issue of the burials at Bessborough remains unresolved, there is now a consensus between the primary stakeholders that any unrecorded burials were likely to have taken place within or adjacent to The Folly."
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