Call for audit of deaths and burials at Cork's Good Shepherd convent

Plans for 274 student apartments on the site of the former Magdalene laundry have been appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála

A visualisation of the student accommodation development planned for he long-derelict Good Shepherd Convent in Cork City. File picture

Calls are being made to require developers of the former Good Shepherd convent, orphanage, and Magdalene laundry in Cork City to establish how many women and children died at the property and where they are buried, before redeveloping the site.

Plans for 274 student apartments on lands of the former Good Shepherd Convent on Convent Avenue, Sunday’s Well, in the northwest of the city, have been appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála.

The plans, by Bellmount Good Shepherd Limited, were appealed to the planning body after approval was granted by Cork City Council.

In a submission to the planning authority, the Justice for Magdalenes Research group asked that the commission “place an explicit condition on the developer to ensure that the history of the site is fully acknowledged and to meaningfully consult with survivors, affected people and family members, and provide evidence of that consultation”.

Crews from Cork Fire Brigade battling a fire at the former convent in Sunday's Well, Cork in 2022 — one of several fires in recent years at the former Good Shepherd Magdalene laundry. 

The group says that it is concerned that a graveyard for women who were long-term residents of the laundry which lies outside the boundaries of the proposed development “will be even further marginalised if measures are not taken to prevent this”.

A second graveyard, for nuns and in which Ellen Organ, known as Little Nellie of Holy God, is buried, is within in the boundaries of the development and the development plan makes provisions for this section.

The submission from the group says: “The new development’s proposed enhancement of the religious sisters’ burial ground, while leaving the Magdalene cemetery in a state of disrepair, reinforces the marginalisation of these women and girls”.

It asks that the planning authority “place a condition that requires the developer to carry out repairs and ensure that the Magdalene graveyard is maintained to the highest possible standard”, if the development gets the go-ahead.

And it also highlights concerns that children could have been buried elsewhere on the site, in locations not yet identified.

While acknowledging that research carried out by its own group indicates that “many of the children” who died at the orphanage were buried in St Joseph’s cemetery in Cork City, Justice for Magdalenes Research says his research is incomplete, “not least because registers after 1917 are not available online”.

Death certificates

The group also contends that it has been unable to locate death certificates for many of the children located in the St Joseph’s registers, raising concerns about deficiencies in record-keeping by the Good Shepherd order.

If planning is to be granted, the group wants a condition imposed that research be first conducted by “a suitably-qualified university-affiliated researcher with experience in this area” to establish how many women and children died at the site and where they are buried “by forensically consulting the civil registration records and the burial registers of public cemeteries in Cork (beginning with St Joseph’s), and by corresponding with the Good Shepherd Order”.

The group advocates for the imposition of “a positive obligation on the developer to ensure that rigorous, forensic, victim-centred archaeological methods are mobilised at Sundays Well, to establish beyond doubt whether undocumented burials are present at the site”.

A ruling is expected from An Coimisiún Pleanála by early November.