Mother and Baby Homes: What today's interim Commission of Investigation report told us
The investigation into the mother and baby homes was expected to be a journey into history and past practices long since laid to rest.
But it has unearthed attitudes and behaviour that show history lives on.
For along with the many hundreds of missing babies and reams of vanished records that the Commission has sought to trace, there is also an absence in some quarters of a willingness to help put things right.
When asked where the 900-plus children who died in the Bessborough home in Cork were buried, the Sacred Heart Sisters who ran it provided the Commission with an affidavit that was "in many respects, speculative, inaccurate and misleading".
The Commission recently found out that some burial records relating to St Finbarr's Hospital were in the possession of Cork University Hospital since 2001 yet it has had to issue a discovery order to access them - a process still underway.
Galway County Council has said it was not aware that babies were informally and inappropriately buried at the Tuam Home which it owned and maintained, yet there is ample evidence to the contrary. It has not explained why it would have no burial register for the children when it was legally obliged to keep such records.
It was asked for a response to the detailed archaeological and technical documents sent to it 21 months ago showing the likelihood that the underground structure in which copious babies' remains have been found was designed for wastewater and sewage but it did not respond. It was sent the first draft of this report last November. It did not respond.
The Bon Secour Sisters who ran Tuam were also sent the technical report about the underground structure. In response, the nuns found the resources to hire their own archaeologist to challenge the findings.
These are only the responses of institutions whose lack of collective recall and documentary archive is described repeatedly as surprising and remarkable.
Individuals have also been less than helpful. For every person who approached the Commission with a memory, anecdote or personal experience that lends weight to the belief that babies born to the poor and unwed were treated with scant regard in life and death, there are others who have stayed silent.
"The Commission is of the view that there must be many people who know more about the burials which are described in this report and who have not come forward with relevant information," the report states. It repeats the sentiment several times in the 96 pages of narrative that accompany some 430 pages of technical findings.
This is the fifth interim report of the Commission, set up in 2015 to investigate 18 institutions known as mother and baby homes between 1922 and 1998.
This report focuses on the homes' burial practices. There are reasonably good records of children's deaths at the homes or in local hospitals where they were sent in their dying days. The very high number of deaths and their preventable causes will be dealt with in the Commission's final report next year.
But there is a dearth of information about what happened to their remains. That has led to added grief for mothers and relatives who had nowhere to go to mourn their loss, and it has fuelled speculation that children may not have died at all but instead were sold off to childless American couples.
The report finds no evidence for this but the institutions involved have done little to quell those fears, some breaching the law of the land or Canon law by failing to keep records.
Ironically, some private burial grounds where babies from homes were buried where under no such obligations to keep records but the Commission has found they did so.
- Burial records are available for only 50 of the 973 babies and children from the Tuam home
- Many were buried informally on the grounds of the Tuam home in underground chambers designed to hold wastewater and sewage
- There is no evidence that babies from Tuam whose deaths were recorded but for whom there is no burial record were instead sold to the United States
- Just 64 burials are recorded of the more than 900 babies from Bessborough who died
- It is likely some were buried at Carr's Hill Cemetery but no burial records have been produced
- It is likely some were buried on Bessborough grounds but much of the original 200 acres has been built on and no obvious signs of burial have been found on the remaining 60 acres
- In total, the burial locations of 1,279 children who died in Cork homes are unknown
- Rules governing the donation and sale of remains to medical schools were routinely breached with knock-on implications for burial records
- Many people who have information about unrecorded burials have yet to come forward to assist the Commission
Dublin Union/St Patrick’s, Navan Road (Pelletstown)
Pelletstown and the Dublin Union were one institution with separate premises run by the Daughters of Charity.
The children who died here were mainly buried in the "Angels’ Plot" at Glasnevin Cemetery where detailed records are kept. A small number were also buried in Mount Jerome while the Commission is continuing to check others.
The burial register records the children as "abandoned", "deserted" and/or "illegitimate". The Commission’s report notes the analysis of deaths at the home is complex for reasons including that many of the children were sent there because they were very ill.
More than 950 children who died here between 1920 and 1977 were sent to the medical schools at UCD, Trinity and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, for “anatomical studies”.
The sending of the bodies of unclaimed deceased residents from institutions to medical schools was common practice until the mid-60s.
The Commission found that the bodies of a number of children were transferred for anatomical studies before the 48-hour period for claiming the body was over. The law states that bodies cannot be sent to medical schools until at least 48 hours after death to enable family members to claim the body and/or object to the body being sent for anatomical studies.
All but 18 of the children received as anatomical subjects were “illegitimate” children.
In general, they were buried in Glasnevin more than a year after their death. There was no distinct section of the “Poor Ground” for these bodies and the usual practice was for the remains of a number of anatomical subjects to be collectively buried in the same plot on the same day. These children were identified in the Glasnevin Poor Ground Burial Registry by the letters “AS” (anatomical subject).
Sean Ross
Records concerning the Sean Ross Mother and Baby Home show that more than 1,000 children and 29 mothers died there or in the District Hospital, Roscrea, where they were sent when they became very ill.
There is no evidence that any record of burials was kept by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who owned and ran the Sean Ross home, despite a canon law requirement to keep a record of burials. There is no certainty about where these children are buried.
The Commission said that an affidavit about the burials provided by the congregation was "in many respects, speculative, inaccurate and misleading".
The affidavit states that all of the children buried in the Sean Ross burial ground received the rites of the Catholic Church and that the congregation “did not bury infants in unapproved cemeteries”. The Commission says this “may well be true but the congregation provided no evidence to support (these assertions)”.
The congregation had said that the child burial grounds were "created within existing by-laws and with the approval of the local Bishops". The Commission said it had no reason to doubt that the bishops were aware of them. The involvement of local bishops and priests in the institutions will be documented in the Commission’s final report.
The congregation also said the infants buried at Sean Ross were buried without cost to local or central government. The Commission dismissed this, saying it was “not true in respect of some, if not all, of the burials”, and said it had seen evidence of burial bills being sent to the local authority.
The Commission has carried out a geophysical study and a test excavation of the site and is examining the results of the excavation.
Bethany Home
Bethany Home was located in Blackhall Place, Dublin between the years 1922 and 1934 and in Orwell Road, Rathgar after that.
The home’s records have been digitally copied and are being analysed by the Commission.
Mount Jerome Cemetery in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, was the main burial site for the children who died in the Bethany Home. The report notes the cemetery has kept very good records of all burials.
The cemetery’s burial registers show that 240 children who were born in, or at one time admitted to Bethany, died between September 1922 and October 1964. Of that 240, 213 were recorded as coming directly from the Bethany Home.
These, and 18 stillborn children, were buried in unmarked graves at Mount Jerome Cemetery. The Commission notes it “seems unlikely that they were buried in the same place as baptised children”.
The oldest recorded age at death was 36 months; the others were all aged 19 months or under.
There are at least 20 other children who died and are not recorded in the Mount Jerome burial register. Bethany Home survivors identified over 310 Bethany children buried there.
The Commission said that once a particular grave was full, it was closed and the next available grave with spare capacity was used.
The Bethany children were buried in, or next to, those used for other private/public adult or child interments.
The burial records show that the children were usually buried within two to three days of their death. There is no evidence of any child from Bethany being used as an anatomical subject before being interred in Mount Jerome.
Bessborough, Cork
More than 900 children died in Bessborough or in hospital after being transferred from Bessborough. However, the Commission says it has been unable to establish where the vast majority of those children are buried. The small on-site burial ground was confined to the congregation, and the Commission said it seemed only one child was buried there.
The Commission has been able to establish the burial place of only 64 children. The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who owned and ran Bessborough do not know where the other children are buried.
Bessborough Mother and Baby Home - which opened in 1922 - was owned and run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
The Commission said that more 900 children who were born in, or admitted to Bessborough died in infancy or early childhood. Most died either in the Sacred Heart Maternity Hospital soon after birth or in the Bessborough Home itself to which infants were transferred some weeks after birth (many more died in the Home than in the Maternity Hospital).
The Commission says it believed it unlikely from an early stage that all the children who died in Bessborough were buried in the estate's small burial ground, which would not have been large enough for the number of children involved and "in any event, it would be unlikely that children would be buried in the same burial ground as members of the congregation".
The report says members of the congregation who provided affidavits and/or oral evidence to the Commission were able to provide "remarkably" little evidence about burial arrangements, and that "the congregation does not know where the vast majority of the children who died in Bessborough are buried".
The report also deemed it "rather surprising" that a nun who was in Bessborough for most of the 50 years between 1948 and 1998 did not remember any child deaths, although 31 children died in the 10 years between 1950 and 1960 alone. Another congregation member who was in Bessborough from 1978-1985 told the Commission that one baby died during her time there.
Forensic archaeologists and the Commission’s researchers reviewed all available maps and aerial images as part of their investigations, and conducted a site survey. They interviewed a landscaper who had conducted extensive groundwork on the estate over a 30-year period, including work that required him to dig up to eight feet deep in an area marked 'Children's Burial Ground'. He found no evidence of human remains. Finally, a public appeal for information or evidence of burials on the estate produced no results.
Nonetheless, the Commission considers it "highly likely" that children who died in Bessborough were buried within its 60-acre grounds - due in part to how expensive it would have been to arrange off-site burials in the 1940s in particular, when many of the deaths occurred and when petrol was scarce. However, it found "no physical or documentary evidence (of child burials in the grounds)".
It also notes the possibility that burials took place in grounds that no longer form part of the Bessborough estate, a total area of about 200 acres. However, without physical evidence of possible locations in the 60-acre grounds of the current estate (and the 200-acre area of the old estate), the Commission said it "did not consider it feasible to excavate 60 acres, not to mention the rest of the former 200-acre estate".
Cork County Home
The Commission has established that, between 1922 and 1998, 552 “illegitimate” children died in Cork County Home/St Finbarr’s Hospital.
So far, no burial records have been found for these children. It is likely that they are buried in Carr’s Hill Cemetery but there is no documentary evidence available.
Both the Cork County Home and the Cork District Hospital were renamed St Finbarr’s in the 1950s.
Castlepollard
The Commission has so far established that over 220 children died in Castlepollard (or in hospitals to which they were sent) and there were eight mothers who died from complications of pregnancy/childbirth.
There is no evidence that any record of burials was kept by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in respect of burials in Castlepollard, despite a canon law requirement to keep such records. An affadavit from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, who owned and ran the institution, was deemed " in many
respects, speculative, inaccurate and misleading".
The Commission found that the children who died in Castlepollard are likely to be buried in the burial ground there. However, there is no documentary evidence to confirm this.
Castlepollard ceased to be a mother and baby home in 1971. The Commission has made digital copies of the records it can find relating to Castlepollard, and is in the process of analysing them.
The report in full can be read here or below.
