"Significant" numbers of babies remains actually found

In August of last year, this newspaper uncovered material in the Cork City and County archives which shows an official investigation into deaths in Bessborough carried out by the Cork County medical officer in 1943 confirmed an infant mortality rate of 68%.

The HSE report states that, in addition to revealing the number of babies that died between 1934 to 1953, the death record at Bessborough lists each child’s date of death, address, name, gender, age at last birthday, profession (marked as son or daughter), cause of death, and, in some cases, the duration of illness and the date when the death was registered.

The recorded causes of death in the entries include: Marasmus, gastro enteritis, congenital debility, spina bifida, congenital syphilis, pneumonia, bronchitis, congenital heart, tubercular peritiorities, cardiac shock, heat stroke, tonsillitis, and prematurity.

Inexplicably one entry which records a child dying of prematurity states that the child had turned three years of age at her last birthday.

Disturbing as these revelations are, perhaps the most shocking claim made in the HSE study is that death records may have been falsified for children so that they could be “brokered” for adoption, perhaps both at home and abroad.

IT WAS THE summer of 1984 and I was due to start my second year of college in UCG. I had had a brief summer romance with an Irish guy I met while working over the summer in London, he was a few years older than me and when we parted at the end of the summer we promised each other we’d stay in touch. I came home to my parents’ house all ready to start second year in college. I wasn’t feeling great and realised shortly afterwards that I was pregnant.

My parent’s initial reaction was one of complete disbelief and silence. Their silence was deafening, I knew they disapproved so much of my pregnancy that I had no choice but to go away. I was constantly reminded that I had younger siblings, I was the eldest of five children. This was not a situation that they would entertain, me being at home pregnant and my youngest sister was only eight years of age. I knew pretty much what I had to do, they arranged with the college that I could postpone my second year and re-join the following year and they set up a meeting with Cura who would “look after me”; this essentially meant me being sent away to a mother-and-baby home for my confinement.

Sent where nobody would know me
I was sent to the furthest point away from them, where no one would know me, and I was sent to Bessborough. They drove me down in October of 1984 to Bessborough mother-and-baby home which is located in Mahon, Cork. We went to the front of the house, my parents and I were brought into the parlour of the main house (the one and only time I was ever in this room) and the nuns told us all that I would be well looked after.

My parents said goodbye and left for home. I was being shown around the facilities, which were grim, it was like a mix of a school and a jail on the inside of the building, there was a courtyard in the centre which to me resembles a jail, all windows and outside stairwells, from a scene in Colditz the movie.

I was shown the laundrette where I could hand wash my clothes, and the nun who was showing me around asked me about the father of the child, I told her his religion was Protestant and that he was Irish; I had to get on my knees and say a decade of the rosary for “forgiveness”. This particular nun was very keen on changing your name when you came into the home, as an act of defiance I kept my name Sally for the whole time I was there. This set the tone of my six months in Bessborough. I shared a room with two other girls, and some nights all you could hear was sobbing coming from the corner of the room. Our sadness and grief were solely our own, it was like an inevitable doom looming and those nights were so long.

We tried to soothe each other
There were approximately 35 girls in the home when I was there, we were all in the same situation, all from different parts of the country, no one wanted us at home, and our pregnancies had to be hidden. The time was put in with reading books, typing lessons, making flower arrangements and pottery clocks. I later found out that all the goods we made – clocks and flower arrangements – were sold in Roches Stores in Patrick St in Cork, it was like we had to earn our keep. The nuns did make us do typing lessons, this was a skill we would have once we left the home. To this day I have 60 words a minute, the only one positive thing to come out of my time at Bessborough.

We spent most of our time keeping ourselves going, someone was having a bad day, we would gather and try to help and soothe each other as best we could. If someone had a visitor it kept us going for ages, they were so lucky… My parents’ lack of contact during this time, reemphasised what they wanted me to do, which was give my baby up for adoption.

The loneliness for my family was incredible. I had been the centre of attention in my own family at home, the eldest, full of life. When I got pregnant and it was like they didn’t want to know me or what I was going through. This situation had to go away, I had to go away, and my baby had to be given away. It all had to appear normal, no one could ever know.

I was terrified
Towards the end of December I started to brainwash myself about giving up the baby, I was training myself to detach, I was watching women leaving their babies every week, broken-hearted, they were utterly devastated. I had to get tough if I was going to leave my child. The nuns would regularly have the priest talk to us, about our faith and making the right decision for our children and our families, no one said you had to give up your baby, but it was totally inferred that what’s they wanted us to do.

The delivery room was on the same corridor as where the girls watched television, everyone knew when someone went into labour, you could hear the screams and we would all be terrified for ourselves and the girl who was in labour. In late March 1985, I went into labour, I was given pethidine as pain relief. I was terrified, so scared, I had never experienced pain like it. One of the nuns was a midwife and she delivered my son. He was taken from me immediately and sent to the nursery. I have never felt so vulnerable, like I was mute, my child was just taken away to another room, I was told he was perfect, when I did see him later on the next day, he was perfect.

I have never experienced such grief and despair

He was put in a nursery with all the other new babies, this was run by a deeply unpleasant nurse who would torment us new mothers, saying things like “your mother doesn’t want to feed you”, while she was feeding our babies. The nuns had encouraged us not to feed our children as this would encourage bonding and make things more difficult for us when it came the time for us to leave.

I left the home three days after he was born, I thought my heart would break, to this day I have never experienced the grief and despair I felt leaving him, I thought I would physically break in half. I know I cried for three months solid, every night I would cry myself to sleep. I think the fact I could cry saved me at the time, I could release my grief through tears.

I signed his final papers when he was six months old, I had convinced myself that it was the right decision for him.

lazybones32 wrote: »

Kind of proving my point there...the children were buried in a plot beside the septic tank; not quite as sensational as "800 babies dumped in a septic tank" that was peddled and later retracted (i.e. they admitted they lied in printing that part, yet the misinformation still persists).

I want to form my judgments based on the truth - don't you?