If you want to object to building over Bessborough, you have one week

The missing 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough are part of the nation’s disappeared, abandoned in the past and disremembered in the present. File photo: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie

Seven weeks ago, Cork City Council granted planning permission for a private apartment development at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home in Bessborough. Permission was given even though 19 mothers and 859 infants associated with Bessborough are missing. 

These women and children are part of the nation’s disappeared, abandoned in the past and disremembered in the present.  Their burial places are not known. Records, testimony and analyses gathered by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation on the questions of death and burial at Bessborough remain sealed in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality.

In contrast with its approach in Tuam, the Commission of Investigation did not carry out geophysical surveys at Bessborough. Nevertheless, it concluded: "It is highly likely that burials did take place in the grounds of Bessborough".

Today’s State appears to have washed its hands of Bessborough’s 878 disappeared children and women, and their many living mothers and other relatives. This approach by officialdom is much the same as in the 20th century.

From 1922 to 1998, Bessborough was owned privately by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. While the State funded Bessborough, health authorities took a laissez-faire approach to monitoring the sisters’ operation. 

Three-quarters of the children born in 1943 died before the age of one. Even between 1958 and 1960, the infant mortality rate was a shocking 10%.  Having owned the land at Bessborough, the sisters were of course able to sell it. And the privatisation of state responsibility continues now. 

Cork City Council’s grant of planning permission simply requires the property owners to undertake a ‘forensic archaeological monitoring strategy’ alongside their site works. They should stop and notify the City Coroner and the Gardaí "should human remains be located in the course of this excavation".  

Our letter to An Coimisiún Pleanála with academic colleagues points out that, as a matter of European and international human rights law, the State cannot displace nor delegate its obligations to investigate deaths effectively and search for the disappeared and return their remains to families. The same arguments can be made under the Irish Constitution (although numerous barriers to accessing court have prevented judicial findings in this arena).

In the 1970s, the State bought 140 acres of the original 200-acre Bessborough estate through compulsory purchase. Today that land contains several industrial/retail parks and part of the N40 road. Many bereaved families are now seeking the compulsory purchase of the remaining 60 acres at Bessborough which are the subject of the recent planning permission.

Cork City councillors, meanwhile, have unanimously passed a motion calling on council officials to work with central government towards a compulsory purchase order. There is no time to waste in doing so.

There is also no time to waste in pursuing the effective investigations into deaths and disappearances that should have happened many decades ago, and that families are still requesting.

The Attorney General has the power to order an inquest at any time, and the south Cork coroner recently settled a High Court challenge by agreeing to re-consider Madeleine Bridget Marvier’s request for an inquest into the death in 1960 of her son born in Bessborough, William Gerard Walsh.

The minister for children also has the option at any time to establish an Office of Director of Authorised Intervention under the Institutional Burials Act 2022. Carmel Cantwell of the Bessboro Mother and Baby Home Support Group has made several formal requests of the minister to do so, unsuccessfully so far.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Any member of the public can make an ‘observation’ on the planning appeals submitted to An Coimisiún Pleanála regarding Bessborough. Appeals have been lodged by Bessboro Mother and Baby Home Support Group, Councillor Peter Horgan, and Estuary View Enterprises 2020 (seeking greater density of apartments).

For those who wish to make an observation, the following information may be of assistance:  

The An Coimisiún Pleanála case reference is 324153. Observations cost €50, and they can be made online at pleanala.ie, or by handing in a letter in person (and requesting a receipt), or by post to An Coimisiún Pleanála, 64 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1, enclosing a cheque or postal order. If you wish to make an observation, ensure that it is received by An Coimisiún Pleanála by Friday, 17 April.

• Written by Maeve O’Rourke, Claire McGettrick, Katherine O’Donnell, Conall Ó Fátharta and James M Smith