Inquiry Urged into Cork Deaths

By Sean O’Riordan
Irish Examiner
June 9, 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/inquiry-urged-into-cork-deaths-271452.html

Children adopted from a Sacred Heart Sisters’ mother-and-baby home in Cork have called for an independent public inquiry to find out many babies died at the centre and where on the site they are buried.

They also want the government to immediately provide counselling for themselves, surviving mothers who gave birth at Bessborough and their families.

The call was made yesterday after members of the Bessborough Mothers and Babies Group gathered at the site in Mahon, where they brought flowers, teddy bears and candles to a vigil where they remembered the babies who died there.

Helen Murphy, who was adopted out of Bessborough in 1963, said the group had no idea how many babies died there, but believe the number was higher than the near 800 buried in a mass grave at a home operated by the Bon Secours Sisters in Tuam, Co Galway.

It is claimed that many of their deaths were due to starvation and neglect.

Former chief medical officer at the Department of Health, Dr James Deeny, estimated that more than 100 babies died in Bessborough in one year alone.

It was opened by the Sacred Heart Sisters in 1922 and most of the children who survived would have been adopted from the 1930s to 1960s.

The same order also ran homes for unmarried mothers at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Co Tipperary — where Philomena Lee, subject of award-winning film Philomena, gave birth to her son Anthony — and Castlepollard in Westmeath.

“We’re calling for an independent public inquiry into how many babies died here in Bessborough and where on the site they are buried,” said Ms Murphy.

“We’re also making an appeal to the Government to immediately provide counselling for those affected. It would be for those adopted, their birth mothers and their families.”

Ms Murphy spent 10 years trying to track her birth mother, who came from north Co Cork, but by the time she discovered her identity, she had died.

“I met her daughter and she was delighted,” said Ms Murphy. “She always knew I existed. I was very lucky as I was adopted by lovely parents, now both deceased, and a fabulous family.”

Carmel Hayes, was born in Bessborough at Christmas 1962 to her 17-year-old mother, who she managed to find 30 years later.

“I eventually got my file, but it took years and years,” said Ms Hayes. “Then one of the nuns tracked her down for me. I was lucky.”

Ms Hayes said she thought people adopted out of Bessborough would be “in bits” in recent days following the Tuam revelations.

“In 1943, 60 out of the 106 children born in Bessborough died,” she said. “Our own research shows there were a very minimum of 600 children who died there between 1931-1955. Yet the [official] graveyard here is very small with just a handful of markers.”