Mother & baby home, Cork: only 64 of 900-plus baby graves found

The report found no physical or documentary evidence of systematic burials in the grounds of the Bessborough home and maternity hospital in Cork city.

But considers it "highly likely" that burials of some of the 900 plus babies and children who died while they were residents of Bessborough from the 1920s to the 1980s took place in the extensive campus, which at one stage was over 150 acres in area.

A search of official burial places in the Cork area found records of just 64 of the children concerned.

It says that representatives of the institution's owners, the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, told the commission it had very little information on burials as Bessborough's records were held by Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, and it had no access to them.

The report states that a number of the congregation's nuns provided affidavits and/or oral evidence to the commission but "were able to provide remarkably little evidence about burial arrangements".

The latest interim report of the commission throws light on serious concerns about burial practices at a number of former maternity institutions.

Meanwhile, the chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors group says the Bessborough 'Little Angles' plot has "effectively disappeared".

Paul Redmond, who was born in a mother and baby home, says the revelation in today's report from the Commission of Investigation is "absolutely shocking" and will be "very upsetting and distressing" for the families of babies who died.

He says people have been holding commemorations since 2014 at the site where they thought the burial ground was located, on the grounds of the former mother and baby home in Cork.

Mr Redmond says now "nobody knows where between 700 and 900 babies are buried and they could be anywhere".

And he says he fears that "as things stand, it looks like there is no possibility of finding out" where any of the remains are actually located.

Paul Redmond says "we will be left with a lot of unanswered questions, forever" and he believes that people who may have information regarding the burial of babies at mother and baby homes "are afraid to come forward".

Within the past two months, the commission has excavated an area in the grounds of the former home at Sean Ross Abbey in Co Tipperary.... The report also states that, to date, the commission has identified the burial places of just 64 of Bessborough''s 900-plus child residents who died between 1922 and 1998.

It recalls that members of the public responded "with mostly second-hand information" to the commission’s appeal for information on burials in Bessborough and that all of this information was followed up.

"...the locations identified as possible burial sites ....were assessed by forensic archaeologists," the report continues. "Some ....have been built on. To date, no physical or documentary evidence has been produced which suggests that any of the sites identified by members of the public contain human remains," it states.

However, the commission also examined the burial records of seven of the eight burial grounds that were in operation in Cork city and its hinterland between 1922 and 1998, the period under review.

So far the commission has been unable to locate the burial records for Cork District Cemetery, Carr’s Hill.

However, a former administrator of St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork who had access to hospital mortuary records, told the commission that many of the significant number of Bessborough children and babies who died there were buried in the graveyard at Carr’s Hill.

He recalled that this was done after the South Cork Board of Public Assistance assumed responsibility for their burials.

The commission finds records of 58 burials between 1922 and 1928 in St Joseph’s Cemetery, Tory Top Road, Cork.

It says that it appears that after 1928, "some alternative burial arrangements were made for the deceased Bessborough children".

It found records of two child residents being buried in St Michael’s Cemetery in Blackrock which was opened in 1957.

A further four children recorded as buried in St Finbarr’s Cemetery in Cork had an association with Bessborough.

Adding together the deaths of so-called "illegitimate" children from Bessborough, St Finbarr’s Hospital and the Cork County Home, the commission has established that 1,343 died at the three locations.

"Despite having undertaken intensive investigation, the burial locations of 1,279 of these children remain unknown," the report states.