Survivors devastated by council's permission for 140 apartments at Bessborough

The graveyard at the Bessborough Centre in Blackrock, Cork. Picture: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie

Survivors say they are "devastated" Cork City Council has granted planning permission for 140 apartments on the site of the former Bessborough mother and baby institution.

The council granted permission to Estuary View Enterprises 2020 despite several previous planning refusals and concerns that the site may contain the unmarked graves of hundreds of children.

Between 1922 and 1998, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran Bessborough as a mother and baby institution, during which time 9,768 mothers and 8,938 babies were admitted.

According to the Mother and Baby Homes Commission, 923 children died at Bessborough, or after being transferred from there. 

Burial records exist for only 64 of those children.

In previous rulings on two applications relating to one area near the Bessborough folly, beside the nuns’ graveyard, the then An Bord Pleanála said the potential existed for the presence of human remains and/or burials at those proposed development sites.

Reacting to the council decision to grant planning permission, Carmel Cantwell of the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home Support Group said survivors are “deeply saddened” at the thought of development on a site of “profound national significance”.

“We objected to this planning application because we believe that this site is one containing a landscape of trauma, loss, and unmarked burials,” Ms Cantwell said.

Her brother William was born in Bessborough in 1960 and was buried in the old Famine graveyard in Carr’s Hill, but this information was kept from his mother for 59 years.

“There is so much unfinished business at Bessborough, and the grounds were not exhaustively investigated to find the burial places of the missing children,” Ms Cantwell said.

In all, 859 children are unaccounted for. For this reason, no one should ever touch what remains of Bessborough.

Ms Cantwell said the group is calling for a full forensic investigation of the former Bessborough site.

Last July, An Coimisiún Pleanála refused plans previously submitted by Estuary View because of its unit mix, and did not adopt a recommendation by its own planning inspector that the application should also be refused due to concerns around possible burials.

Carmel Cantwell, Rochestown, Cork, with a candle for her late brother William Gerald Walsh at the annual Bessborough Commoration at the Bessborough Centre, Blackrock, Cork. Picture: Dan Linehan

In its new application, the developer said it had previously consulted with the Cork Survivors & Supporters Alliance (CSSA), saying: "We understand that the CSSA had no objection to the principle of the proposed development."

Despite objections, Cork City Council approved the plans saying they would not seriously injure the area’s residential or visual amenities, and are in accordance with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

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The approved plans will see 140 units built across three blocks, comprising a mix of one- and two-bedroom apartments and one three-bedroom unit.

Local Fianna Fáil city councillor and former lord mayor Terry Shannon, whose late wife Ursula was a prominent adoption rights advocate, said it is “a bad decision and shows just how out of touch our planners are with members of council and the local community”. 

“It is an area that needs proper commemoration, but it’s also an area that should be kept as a regional park for the general population of that side of the city, where there is a dearth of green areas,” Mr Shannon said.

“The area is a bottleneck already, so the concern I would have is that in giving permission for 140 units in there, it’s giving precedent for more."

There are 70 conditions attached to the council’s decision to grant planning permission, ranging from archaeological to ecological to public health.

Labour Party city councillor Peter Horgan noted that five of the 70 conditions refer to the potential for discovery of human remains during construction on the site.

“This in itself outlines that this is not an ordinary site,” he said.