Elaine Loughlin: Campaign to stop a literal digging up of a painful past
Elaine Loughlin: For decades, the infants who perished in mother and baby homes were treated as lesser, now officialdom threatens to dehumanise them yet again.
For decades, the infants who perished in mother and baby homes were treated as lesser, now officialdom threatens to dehumanise them yet again.
There are 900 missing Bessborough babies, infants who in death were denied the dignity of a funeral or a gravestone to mark their short existence.
These were not lesser lives, they were born and they died.
Last week, campaigners took their fight to the Dáil. They want to give these babies and their families a respectful end and some answers through a coroner's inquest.
A draft Burials Bill, which will allow for excavations and reinterment of remains at Tuam and other former mother and baby homes, excludes coroners from the process.
The Oireachtas Children's Committee heard that fully investigating the 9,000 deaths that occurred in these institutions could take up to 25 years and would be a massive drain on both staff resources and the public purse. But survivors and experts are adamant that this must happen.
“I don't believe that you can put a time limit on suffering. I don't believe you can put a time limit on lack of knowledge in relation to death," said Prof Phil Scraton, who was involved in the investigation into the Hillsborough disaster, told the committee.
This week, the attention shifts to An Bord Pleanála, which will decide whether part of the Bessborough site should be turned into housing.
An oral hearing on Wednesday will examine proposals to build 179 apartments in three blocks on the former mother and baby home estate, which overlaps an area marked on historic maps as 'Children's Burial Ground'.
This is not some prehistoric site or even a famine graveyard – the mothers, fathers and siblings of many of those who died in Bessborough are still alive.
Maureen Considine of Cork Survivors and Supporters Alliance (CSSA) says the most common reaction to the development is a dismissal of the possibility of it even going ahead.
"Sure it can't happen, can it?" is the usual response.
But she and others fear the apartment complex, which was applied for by MWB Two Ltd using the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process, will proceed on the lands close to what is known as the folly.
Of course, when it comes to Bessborough nothing is certain, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who ran the home from 1922 until its closure in 1998, cannot say where the burials took place.
There are also 15 women who died in the home who campaigners believe were buried within the grounds.
We do know the nuns of Bessborough used St Joseph's Cemetery up to 1929, but from the early 1930s through to the 1950s there is little clarity about where those who died in the Cork home were laid to rest.
In its final report, published in January, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes said it had been able to establish that 923 babies and infants died in Bessborough or in hospital after being transferred from Bessborough during this time.
But based on the memories of those who were sent to Bessborough and the historical ordnance survey maps, it is widely believed that infants were buried close to, or even on, the area now earmarked for the apartment development.
When it virtually meets this week, An Bord Pleanála is expected to ask for further clarification about this area, focusing to the northwest of the Bessborough folly and within the SHD development site.
The board has already noted that the southern parts of the three proposed apartment blocks encroach onto this potential burial ground.
The developer will be asked to provide more information on the “appropriateness" of the excavation, surveying, and monitoring during construction, as opposed to prior to construction or prior to the grant of a permission on the site.
The applicant will also be asked to address the issue as to the viability or feasibility of the proposed development, in full or in part, if human remains were to be found within the areas identified for development.
Campaigners are relieved that An Bord Pleanála has taken the somewhat unusual move to hold an oral hearing, which means they will be given a chance to voice their concerns.
Unlike Tuam, where the majority of relatives want the remains of the 700 infants removed from a septic tank on the site and reinterred, there are mixed views when it comes to Bessborough.
For many, excavating the site would be a re-traumatisation, a literal digging up of a painful past.
The CSSA last week told TDs and senators: “While the exhumation of remains in other sites, such as Tuam, may be an appropriate response, it is not appropriate at Bessborough.
But the granting of planning permission for any development could force this decision as once soil is broken there is no knowing what may be unearthed.
“These were individual babies, Irish citizens, God knows what could have become of them," historian Catherine Corless told the Children's Committee last week.
“There has been a sense that they were illegitimate so let them rest. We must do right by them."
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Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress Maude Gonne McBride dies aged 87. While she is now most remembered for her social campaigning and turbulent relationship with poet WB Yeats, the in reporting her passing said "she was recognised as one of the most beautiful ladies in court circles. On one occasion in Brussels students unharnessed the horses from her carriage which they then drew themselves".
An IRA truck bomb devastates the Bishopsgate area of London’s financial centre, killing one and injuring 44, as well as causing damage running into hundreds of millions of pounds. A month earlier, the terrorists had detonated the Warrington bomb which killed three-year-old Jonathan Ball and 12-year-old Tim Parry.
Each Dáil day starts with a prayer. Back in 2017, a proposal to scrap the prayer was defeated and instead 30 seconds of silent reflection was added to the end of it to accommodate those of other faiths or none.
Before the business of the day begins, all members are asked to stand and the Ceann Comhairle reads the following prayer in Irish and English:
"Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ Our Lord. Amen."
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A number of ministers will come before various Oireachtas committees including Tourism and Arts Minister Catherine Martin, Rural and Social Protection Heather Humphreys as well as the Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien.
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As the Dáil returns after the Easter break, opposition leaders will get their first chance of the month to grill the Taoiseach on whatever matters they like. However, as usual, Covid and the vaccination programme is expected to dominate.
Polling closes and counting begins in the two Seanad by-elections to fill the vacancies caused by the resignations of Fine Gael's Michael D'Arcy and Sinn Féin's Elisha McCallion. It has been strongly rumoured the Government's voting pact to elect one Fianna Fáil and one Fine Gael candidate could be in jeopardy as members look to send a message to the leadership by backing independent candidates.
Politicians may have had a break away from Leinster House, but that didn't stop Health Minister Stephen Donnelly from hitting the headlines. TDs will be eager to press the minister on the various delays and changes to the vaccine rollout, including his confusing kite-flying around changing the rollout to prioritise younger people.
