Woman born in Bessborough recalls seeing baby buried on grounds of mother and baby home

A woman who was born in Bessborough in the 1950s has said she remembers seeing a baby’s body being buried in the grounds of the mother and baby home.

Last week, An Coimisiún Pleanála substantially upheld Cork City Council’s decision to grant planning for apartments at Bessborough, allowing for the building of 106 homes, despite concerns that the bodies of hundreds of missing children could be buried there.

Therese ‘Terry’ Meyer, who is the president of the New York State Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, spent her first four years in Bessborough, where she claims she witnessed an illegal burial.

Ms Meyer said she and a little boy had run off, towards the folly by the nuns’ graveyard.

“We saw a baby being buried, and we got the literal you-know-what beaten out of us because we were in an area we weren’t supposed to be in,” she said.

“I kept saying, ‘What is that?’ When you’re that little, you don’t understand what’s going on all the time, and they said, ‘Oh, it’s just a doll’.” 

She said she had no idea what a doll was: “The only toy I had was a plastic horse. That was my toy.”

The area in which Ms Meyer says she saw a burial is not currently earmarked for development, but she and other survivors say children’s bodies could have been buried anywhere on what was then a 200-acre estate, and now consists of 60 undeveloped acres.

In 2021, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation found that of 923 Bessborough infant deaths, burial records existed for only 64. It concluded it was “highly likely” that some of the missing 859 children were buried on the institution’s grounds.

Now close to 70, Ms Meyer says she has vivid and disturbing memories of her time in the mother and baby institution, which was operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary between 1922 and 1998.

“We were told every day we were the devil’s spawn; we weren’t worth anything. Many a time, you were slapped, you were hit,” she said.

“We were never given any type of warmth. I know some of the mothers who were there wanted to just give a hug or give a warm touch, but they were not allowed to do that.”

Although adopted by a kind American couple who she says became her “real parents”, Ms Meyer said she has struggled all her life with low self-esteem. “It was drummed and beaten into you, that you were worthless,” she said.

She and her husband have been married 43 years. They have four daughters, two of whom she says are in heaven, and two young grandchildren.

“God bless my husband, he’s had to put up with my ups and my downs, but he could never figure out why I would wake up screaming, and I just never said why, but it was because I was remembering and reliving.” 

 In 1999 Ms Meyer met her birth mother, but, she said: “Not all reunions are happy reunions”.

With the way now clear for building on what she calls “sacred ground, holy ground”, Ms Meyer said the Government must step in, compulsorily purchase the Bessborough site, and order a forensic examination of the grounds.

“We have to find them,” she said.

“Those babies count. They were human beings. They were children of God. They were somebody’s daughter or son. They mattered. They matter.”