Bessborough: Mystery remains around the missing 859 babies and infants

A memorial plaque for Baby Philip Martin  in the burial grounds of deceased nuns at Bessborough, Cork, beside the folly which is adjacent to lands that are subject to a planning application by MWB Two Limited. Photo: Larry Cummins

The Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance want a comprehensive forensic archaeological investigation of the site of the former mother and baby home in Cork City to establish once and for all whether remains are buried there, writes Eoin English

As the Commission of Investigation winds down, a key question remains unanswered about one of its most shocking findings - where are the bodies of 859 infants who died while associated with the notorious Bessborough House buried?

Survivors and campaigners say the State must fund a comprehensive forensic archaeological investigation of the site to establish once and for all whether the remains are buried, as they suspect, on the former mother and baby home estate in Cork City.

The Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance (CSSA), which represents more than 50 Bessborough survivor families, also wants a stay put on any potential development on the land until that fundamental question is answered - where are the missing 859?

@RositaSweetman wrote about our Catherine's experiences.

‘From the day we were born the State & Church failed us. We don’t want pity. We want our word to be taken seriously. Our childrens’ burial grounds to be honoured.'

Listen. Support our petitionhttps://t.co/NtnGPhRF3c https://t.co/fPsJ149n7o

— Cork Survivors & Supporters Alliance (@Lost900Bessboro) February 5, 2021

Bessborough House operated as a mother and baby home from the time of its purchase by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1922 until the late 1990s.

In its final report published last month, the Commission said it had been able to establish that 923 babies and infants died in Bessborough or in hospital after being transferred from Bessborough between 1922 and its closure in 1998.

But despite “very extensive inquiries and searches”, the Commission said it had been able to establish the burial place of only 64 children in various city cemeteries.

The Commission said it examined maps and aerial photographs of Bessborough, it engaged forensic archaeologists to examine maps and carry out a landscape assessment of possible unrecorded burial arrangements there, its own researchers reviewed all available maps and aerial images, and a site survey was conducted.

It said while it is likely that some of the children are buried there, it has just been unable to find any physical or documentary evidence.

The religious order which ran Bessborough told the Commission that they do not know where the children were buried.

The Commission, the mothers of babies who died there, and the campaigners who represent them, find that difficult to believe.

The Commission oversaw detailed archaeological investigations into infant burials at the former mother and baby home sites in Tuam and Sean Ross Abbey.

The CSSA says given the scale of infant deaths at Bessborough, surely a similarly detailed excavation must be done at Bessborough, and that no development should be allowed until that work is done.

The clock is ticking.

Developers MWB Two Ltd sought permission this week to build 246-apartments in a scheme called Gateway View on a 3.7-acre parcel of privately-owned land on the former Bessborough estate.

Markers for the graves of deceased nuns in the burial grounds for deceased nuns, beside the folly at Bessborough. The religious order which ran Bessborough told the Commission that they do not know where the children were buried. Photo: Larry Cummins

They applied to Cork City Council for permission to build 67 apartments in an eight-storey apartment block, and to An Bórd Pleanála for permission to build 179 apartments in three buildings, from five to seven storeys high, right next door through the fast-track strategic housing development (SHD) process.

Part of the SHD site overlaps an area marked on historic maps as a “children’s burial ground” - alongside Bessborough’s historic folly, where survivors gather annually for a service of remembrance.

As part of their planning application, the developers commissioned archaeological investigations of the landbank, digging six of eight licensed test trenches before the licence was withdrawn. No human bones were found.

A report based on the investigations said there is no definitive evidence to suggest that the proposed SHD development site contains any unrecorded burials but crucially, it said that the potential that unrecorded burials took place within this specific site, whilst remote, cannot be fully discounted.

Last month, city council planners refused planning for the 67-unit element, ruling that it was designed as part of a larger development that is subject to a separate consent process, the Bórd’s SHD process.

A plaque remembering the babies, women and girls on the Greenway between Rochestown and Blackrock in Cork of the former mother and baby home at Bessborough. The CSSA said the time has come to find the missing 859. Photo: Eddie O'Hare

“It is considered that the proposed development cannot be permitted in isolation, due to its scale, relationship to the historic landscape in which it sits and its physical detachment,” the planning decision said.

“Development of the kind proposed, therefore would be premature pending the determination by the competent authority of the separate SHD application on the adjoining lands.” Campaigners have expressed hope that An Bórd Pleanála will take similar planning matters into consideration when arriving at their decision on the larger scheme, which is due next month. 

Since the publication of the Commission’s final report, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that there should be “a proper, robust identification” of the burial of the children and that he would have deep concerns about construction going ahead on the Bessborough site in the absence of that.

The Minister for Children, Roderic O’Gorman, has said that he shares campaigners’ concerns about the potential existence of children’s remains at the site. Cork City Council has established a working group to consider the various matters arising from the Commission’s report as they relate to Bessborough.

The CSSA said after all this time, after all the reports and commentary, the time to find the missing 859 has come.