A letter, sent with hope.
After getting a suggestion to ask Minister Roderic O’Gorman to see if he’d appoint someone to continue on researching mother and baby homes, with the objective of making those findings public (and had me in mind) - this was the email I had sent asking for this to be introduced.
Minister,
I am writing to you for a few reasons. Firstly, I wanted to introduce myself. I'm Daniel Loftus, a genealogist from Cork who has been doing genealogy for almost seven years. I know in your department, you deal with mother and baby homes. A little under four years ago, my mother and I discovered more about her as an infant - one of the details in her case she was born in Bessborough House in Cork. She was adopted from St. Clare’s in Stamullen, County Meath about two months after she was born. Six years ago this November would’ve been the start of my Mum beginning to discover who she is, the journey that I have been a part of with her to learn more about her has not been easy but it has absolutely been worth it.
That was one of the catalysts that led me to launch Project Infant - its intended aim is to make the names of the mothers and infants who died in mother and baby homes (and similar institutions) publicly accessible. However, in more recent times, this has expanded to include more things: to record the names of all infants who were born in mother and baby homes across Ireland using publicly accessible records through https://irishgenealogy.ie and have had numerous successful cases where I was able to give survivors their family history back to them. I would love for you to have a look at it here: https://projectinfant.ie - I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Holly Cairns, whom you’ll also note has also been campaigning in this area and I was able to show her my work which based on an initial reaction, she was impressed by.
As you and I are well aware, this is a topic that despite the Government’s Final Report released in January of 2021, is a topic in Ireland’s cultural and social history that should be examined even further after the fact which independent research like the Clann Project’s or even my own has done more to unearth this not to mention the findings of the independent examination at Sean Ross Abbey.
One thing I would ask of you to do is to appoint someone (or a group of people) to continue this research and have the findings published. In my introduction, I didn’t describe myself as a professional. This is because while I am not a professional genealogist and don’t have certification in the area, I am very capable of conducting genealogical research and have composed numerous reports to demonstrate such results and again, while I am not a professional in the area of mother and baby homes, this has been the primary focus of my research for the past 15 months. With first-hand knowledge of the hurdles adoptees have to climb to access their information and keen research skills in this area, I would hope that if you do choose to introduce this position, to please consider me. Or if not me, perhaps another genealogist who I’m sure would be willing to step up to the challenge.
I look forward to hearing your response,
Kind regards,
Daniel Loftus
Founder - Project Infant
All links to our social media, update feed and more: https://projectinfant.carrd.co