Irish Examiner View: Bessborough apartments are a morbid prospect

The possibility that the remains of lost infants could be uncovered while building these apartments is horrifying

The graveyard at the Bessborough centre in Blackrock, Cork, formerly Bessborough House Mother and Baby Home. The children born here  were failed utterly by the State during their brief lives; in a very small way it might help to address that failure if they were left in peace now. Picture: Laura Hutton/RollingNews.ie

A decision is expected soon on a planning application for 92 apartments proposed for the Bessborough site in Cork.

As reported by this newspaper, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation reported that between 1922 and 1998, some 923 children died while resident in Bessborough. 

However, the commission was only able to locate 64 of these burials, which means the final resting places of 859 infants remains unknown.

The expert clinical archaeologist who carried out a site assessment for the apartment proposal, has said the potential for unrecorded 20th-century human remains at the site earmarked for apartments cannot be discounted.

Such a bald statement of the facts hardly does justice to the misery and suffering experienced by women and infants in Bessborough for decades, and the ongoing heartbreak of many who still do not know where loved ones are buried.

The possibility that the remains of some of those lost infants could be uncovered while building these apartments is horrifying.

These children were failed utterly by the State during their brief lives; in a very small way it might help to address that failure if they were left in peace now.