Good Shepherd student housing plan in Cork city ‘a death knell for the area’

News that planning has been granted for Cork City’s largest-ever student accommodation development has been described by a northside residents’ association as “a death knell for the area”.

An Coimisiún Pleanála has upheld a decision by Cork City Council to grant planning for a 957-bed development for students at the former Good Shepherd Magdalene laundry and convent in Sunday’s Well.

Appeals had been lodged by residents and groups, including the Blarney Street and Surrounding Areas Community Association, which said that the nature and size of the development were unsuited to the area.

Survivor group Justice For Magdalenes Research had asked that multiple conditions be attached to planning, including a forensic, victim-centred archaeological search of the site for human remains.

Green light

However, the planning commission has given the green light for the partial demolition, conservation redevelopment, and extension of the existing former Good Shepherd convent buildings for student accommodation use.

The development, to be constructed by Bellmount Good Shepherd Limited — which is owned by developer brothers Pádraig and Séamus Kelleher — would consist of eight student-accommodation apartment blocks, ranging in height from three to five storeys.

A separate, three-storey mixed-use building is also proposed, with ground-floor shops and upper-floor student accommodation, while the existing gate lodge would be converted to a cafe and co-working space.

A total of 274 student apartments, with 957 beds, are planned for the site, with the property “to be made available outside academic seasons for tourists and other guests”.

Tom Coleman, chairman of the Blarney St community association, said he was “devastated” at the news.

“It’s a death knell for the whole area,” he said. 

“An extra 1,000 people and their cars on top of an infrastructure that is already breaking at the seams is insanity, and that’s not to mention years of construction traffic on top of a road system that is already in gridlock morning and evening.”

Conditions

Conditions set out in the planning permission include that it be completed within seven years and should human remains be found during construction, all work must stop, and relevant authorities should be informed.

Permission for apartments at the Good Shepherd site, which is owned by Moneda Developments and has been on Cork City Council’s derelict sites register since 2019, was previously granted in 2018, but those plans were never progressed, and planning lapsed in December 2023.

All of the surviving convent buildings are derelict and have suffered extensive fire damage as a result of multiple blazes across the years.

The Good Shepherd convent was established in 1870 and operated until 1977.

The convent also served as a Magdalene laundry, an orphanage, and an industrial school, with thousands of women and children incarcerated there over the years. Burial records show that at least 188 women died there.

Buried

Some 110 nuns are buried in a graveyard on the eastern side of the site, which is also the final resting place of Ellen Organ, a four-year-old who has been venerated as “Little Nellie of Holy God” since her death in the orphanage in 1908.

High up in an almost inaccessible corner on the northwestern end of the former convent site, in an area beyond the planned development, a vandalised stone cross bears the names of 30 women.

They were kept in the Magdalene laundry and are believed to be buried in a mass grave on the site. However, three of the women named on the headstone are also listed as being buried at St Joseph’s Cemetery.

The Echo has asked Bellmount Developments for comment, and has been unsuccessful in contacting Moneda Developments.