Survivors fighting Bessborough apartment plans prepared to chain themselves to diggers

The annual Bessborough commemoration heard yesterday that survivors of the former mother and baby institution are willing to chain themselves to diggers, should planning for 140 apartments on the site be upheld.

In February, Cork City Council granted permission for the apartments, a decision that is currently being appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála, with a decision due by July 9.

The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran Bessborough as a mother and baby institution between 1922 and 1998.

In 2021, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission reported 923 child deaths relating to Bessborough, concluding that - with burial records existing for only 64 of those children - it was “highly likely” some were buried on the institution’s grounds.

More than 250 people attended Sunday’s commemoration, which heard that survivors will not stand idly by planning is upheld and construction begins on the site.

Among those attending were the Lord Mayor of Cork, councillor Damian Boylan, as well as several local Oireachtas members and city councillors.

Addressing the gathering, Carmel Cantwell, whose brother William died in 1960, a baby in the care of Bessborough, said the bodies of 859 children are missing from the institution, and no exhaustive search of the site has ever been conducted.

“We have spoken to witnesses who saw burials take place, we know children were laid to rest here, but there is no single, identified burial place,” she said.

“The land itself holds the truth, these buildings, these fields, they hold the stories, the secrets, and the remains of our family members.

“This is also the place where nearly 19,000 women, girls, and children passed through, many subjected to harsh treatment.

“Most were separated from their babies, even when the mothers were fully capable of caring for them.” 

The gathering heard moving testimonies from survivors and family members, with many vowing to fight against any development of Bessborough’s remaining 60 acres.

Noelle Brown, a Social Democrats Dublin city councillor, who was born in Bessborough in the 1960s, said that when the full history of mother and baby institutions is finally written, people will ask why such a thing was allowed.

“We will be judged, and judged harshly, and rightly so," she said.

The MC for the commemoration was broadcaster PJ Coogan, and Cork singer and performer Camille O’Sullivan sang at the event.

On Saturday, a smaller group of approximately 20 survivors and their supporters attended a separate vigil at the former mother and baby institution. 

That group is not opposed to the development of the Bessborough site, but rather favours memorialisation of a smaller area it believes to be the site of a children's burial ground.