‘when They Took Away My Baby, They Took Away My Life’

By Sean O’Riordan
Irish Examiner
June 9, 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/lsquowhen-they-took-away-my-baby-they-took-away-my-lifersquo-271456.html

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

The adoptees have also called on the Government to provide them with counselling and to support surviving mothers who gave birth at Bessborough House.

The call was made yesterday after members of the Bessborough Mothers and Babies Group gathered at the site in Mahon-Blackrock, commemorating the babies who died there.

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

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

It is understood that a similar number of babies were secretly taken to the US for adoption.

Adoptees from Bessborough yesterday told how, in many cases, it took decades of searching before they were able to make contact with their biological mothers — and in some cases it was too late.

Carmel Hayes, who was born in Bessborough at Christmas 1962 to her 17-year-old mother, said: “I eventually got my file, but it took years and years. Then one of the nuns tracked her down for me. I was lucky.”

One woman described the “unbelievably traumatic” experience of having her baby taken from her at Bessborough.

Marion Kelly recalled how, aged 18 in 1974, she was induced in a Cork City hospital before being transferred to Bessborough.

“It was unbelievably traumatic for me. When they took away my baby, they took away my life,” said Ms Kelly.