Bessborough: 1926 census reveals scale of child deaths and missing records in Cork

New census analysis highlights deaths, missing children, and lived experiences at Bessborough as redevelopment plans reignite public attention

The nuns' graveyard in Bessborough, and behind it what was wrongly thought to be a children's burial area. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

The 1926 census allows us to look back a century to a place where more than 900 children died, where more than 800 bodies are missing, and where Cork City Council has now granted permission for the building of 140 apartments.

There were 144 people in the Sacred Heart Convent at Bessborough House on census night, Sunday, April 18, 1926.

Head of the household was Bessborough’s mother superioress, Sr Martina Gleeson, a 53-year-old native of Kinnitty in Co Offaly. By the time she was fired two decades later, she would ultimately preside over the deaths of nearly 700 children.

Her census return shows there were 81 women in “Bessborough Convent” that night, one man, and 62 children, including 33 boys and 29 girls.

Seven of the women were nuns. The youngest was Sr Eva Hughes (26) and the eldest Sr Martina.

The oldest resident was Mary Curran, aged 59, who was recorded as a boarder there. Three women, Mabel Huckvale, 55, Ellen Ryan, 49, and Nelly Grosse, 39, were recorded as “attendant”.

Mabel Huckvale would die of dementia in Bessborough, aged 82, in 1953. Ellen Ryan died aged 62 in the convent in 1939, of myocardial degeneration. Nellie Grosse died in Bessborough in 1943 of natural causes, aged 58.

All of the other 69 women in Bessborough that night, ranging in age from 18 to 40, appear to have been mothers of babies born there.

Each of the 62 children — ranging in age from newborns to four-years-old — is described in the census returns as “illegitimate”.

Bessborough had operated as a mother and baby institution since 1922, and by census night 1926 — as far as the fledgeling Free State was aware — 31 children had already died there in those four years. However, events almost a century later would cast doubt on the reliability of the information offered by the Sacred Heart sisters.

In Bessborough’s 76 years as a mother and baby institution, 9,768 mothers and 8,938 babies were
admitted there.

According to the General Registry Office (GRO), death certificates were issued for 816 Bessborough children.

In 2021, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission reported that it was aware of 923 child deaths related to Bessborough, 107 more than the nuns had disclosed to the GRO.

Bessborough House, where 923 babies are known to have died. The names of the children whose deaths relate to Bessborough will be read at the former mother and baby institution at 1pm Sunday, April 26. Picture: Denis Minihane

Comparing the names of children recorded for Bessborough in the 1926 census with the GRO data throws up six commonalities.

Kathleen Collins, listed in the census as three months old, was recorded by the GRO as dying of gastroenteritis on August 27, 1926, at the age of seven months. Her mother, Kitty Collins aged 21, is listed on the census as a domestic servant.

James Neenan, listed as nine months on the census, died aged 11 months, on June 9, 1926, of pulmonary TB. His mother, Mary Neenan, aged 24, is recorded as a general domestic servant.

Peter McCarthy is listed on the census as being two years old, and he was recorded as dying of tuberculosis, at four, on August 6, 1928. His mother Mary, aged 21, is recorded as carrying out “home duties”.

John Jeffers, listed as two years old on the census, died of tuberculosis, at the age of five, on November 27, 1928. His 28-year-old mother is recorded as Francis (with an i), a domestic servant from Douglas.

Patrick Murphy, listed on the census as two years old, died on August 6, 1928, of tuberculosis meningitis. His mother, Kate aged 23, is listed as a hotel waitress from Bandon.

Carmel Cantwell, whose brother William died in Bessborough in 1960, has carried out extensive research on the women, girls, and infants who stayed in Bessborough.

Among those included in the 1926 census is Annie Walsh aged 21, a domestic servant who had her baby, John, in the Youghal Union workhouse.

Ms Cantwell’s research reveals that in January 1925 both were admitted to Bessborough.

“John Walsh died on January 28, 1925, aged six weeks, and his cause of death was notified as general debility,” Ms Cantwell said. “He is buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery. Annie never left Bessborough, remaining there for 60 years. She died in 1985, and is also buried in St Joseph’s Cemetery.”

Julia O’Donoghue, aged 28, from Mallow, is listed in the census beside her daughter, also Julia, aged three years and nine months.

“Julia’s daughter was informally adopted at the age of 12,” said Ms Cantwell.

“Julia never left Bessborough, remaining there for 62 years. She died in 1984 and is buried in St Joseph’s cemetery.

Lizzie Hope is listed in the census as 18. She died of cancer in Bessborough three decades later. She was 47.

Kate O’Brien, aged 21, was in Bessborough on census night, with her nine-month-old daughter, Mary. Kate would die two years later, of reported natural causes.

Lizzie McCarthy, from Douglas, was 19 on census night. She died in Bessborough in 1932, aged 26 years, reportedly from natural causes.

Joan Twomey, from Macroom, was 27 in 1926. She died in Bessborough in 1958, aged 62, cause of death listed as “cardiac”.

Inspection reports from Bessborough cited an 82% infant mortality rate at the institution. File picture

By the early 1940s, the death toll of children in Bessborough became so high it affected the national infant mortality rate. At the time, the UK — embroiled in the Second World War — had an infant mortality rate of 4.9%. Ireland’s rate was 6.6%.

Between April 1943 and March 1944, 124 babies were either born at Bessborough or admitted there after birth, while 102 children were officially certified as having died there, with inspection reports citing an 82% infant mortality rate in the home.

A June 1941 government report found Sr Martina had no qualifications in supervising maternity care.

A subsequent 1943 report by government inspector Alice Litster found that, of 27 babies in the nursery aged between three weeks to nine months, only eight were breastfed and only three fully.

She wrote: “The greater number were miserable scraps of humanity, wizened, some emaciated and almost all had rash and sores all over their bodies, faces, hands and heads.”

In 1945 Dr James Deeny, State chief medical advisor, found in Bessborough: “Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhoea, carefully covered up.”

Deeny sacked Sr Martina, and Bessborough reopened under Mother Rosemonde in September 1945.

Conditions there improved dramatically, with annual infant deaths dropping permanently to single figures.

Of the 923 infant deaths associated with Bessborough, almost 700, that we know of, occurred under
Sr Martina.

Bessborough remained a harsh place, according to June Goulding, a midwife there from 1951. In her 1998 memoir The Light in the Window, she wrote that pregnant girls and women were forced to trim the lawns with nail clippers and were denied pain relief during labour.

The names of the 923 children whose deaths relate to Bessborough will be read at the former mother and baby institution at 1pm tomorrow, Sunday, April 26.

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