Graveyard containing remains of Bessborough babies could become a commemorative site

A memorial at Bessborough in Cork. Picture: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

An historic famine graveyard where Bessborough babies are also buried could become a national visitor destination and a sacred reflective space if the right development approach is adopted, a former Lord Mayor of Cork has said.

Independent Cllr Mick Finn made his comments in support of calls from Green Party Cllr Dan Boyle for Cork City Council to consider the “proper and effective naming” of those who died while in the care of mother and baby homes or in Magdalene laundries in Cork city and who are buried at the All Saint’s Cemetery at Carr's Hill, and at other cemeteries in the city.

Mr Boyle specifically mentioned plots associated with the Bessborough mother and baby home, with the Good Shepherds facility in Sunday's Well, which has plots at St Joseph's Cemetery, Ballyphehane, and he said similar efforts should be made to acknowledge and commemorate those known to be interred at the All Saint’s Cemetery between Douglas and Carrigaline.

According to the 2019 Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation Report, the burial place of over 900 children who died in Bessborough is unknown.

The commission said 53 children are buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery, two in St Finbarr’s, and most likely five in the All Saints Cemetery.

The council’s assistant chief executive, Brian Geaney, told this month's meeting of Cork City Council that the Good Shepherd Sisters erected some headstones in recent years at plots in St Joseph’s detailing the names of those interred in the graves.

He said the city is still arranging for the formal legal transfer from the HSE of the All Saint’s cemetery to its ownership.

He said a project team will then be set up initially to “scope, research and inform” the future management of this site, that the team’s work will “include consideration of the agreed priorities of survivors”, and that the council has been engaging on an ongoing basis with the representatives of the mother and baby homes survivor groups.

“The marking of sites and graves is deeply personal and to that extent, the council will continue to engage with the representative organisations to ensure that any commemoration is sensitive to the needs of survivors,” he said.

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Mr Finn said the city’s acquisition of this cemetery presents it with an opportunity to develop proper access to the off-road site, to install interpretive or heritage panels, with linkages to the burial site at St Joseph's, and to restore the cemetery’s large landmark cross to its former glory.

He also called for work to start on a heritage development plan for the Carr's Hill cemetery and said funding should be sought to “tastefully and respectfully” develop the “sacred site” as a proper national visitor destination and reflective space, and to include the restoration of the large cross on the site.

“The resultant space here must be a fitting, poignant, educational and respectful tribute to all those buried in the Carr’s Hill cemetery, many of whom have yet to be accorded such respect by the state,” he said. 

He has also called on the council to take over a once-annual famine commemoration held at St Joseph’s cemetery where a volunteer group is no longer in a position to run it.

“It would be much more sustainable if the annual ceremony could be run by the council, similar to the local version of the annual National Commemoration in Fitzgerald’s Park which is done so well,” he said.

The All Saints Cemetery is known to many local people as ‘The Pauper’s Graveyard’.

It was used as a burial ground for victims of the Great Famine and paupers and was in use as a burial ground up until the 1950s. It is estimated that around 30,000 people are buried there.

It is a national monument and an annual commemoration ceremony is held in the cemetery each September.

The late Jack Sorensen, a taxi driver in Cork who died in 1979, erected a cross on the site to honour the famine dead in 1958.