Bessborough

Back to where it all began. (With a bit of important housekeeping at the end)

I seem to be going through another phase of “I don’t know what to write / talk about on my podcast”. But some things are just looking right at you. [It’s what my next podcast episode will be about, but from a different point of view to this post.] It’s been the one word that has been on my mind for a long time. Bessborough.

June 23rd celebrated the Bessboro Mother and Baby Home Support Group’s 10th commemoration, an event which aims to remember the mothers and children who died in Bessborough. This year’s commemoration was my second one. When you travel down the long, winding drive, I feel heavy, it’s a place of mixed emotions — the building is now used for a positive purpose, but it wasn’t always like that.

When you walk down the path to the folly of Bessborough, the atmosphere feels different. It feels peaceful, serene. It’s strange.

There were so many amazing people speaking this year with a lot of stories to tell. If you ever want to watch any of it (which I would highly recommend), those clips can be found here.

Last year, I didn’t have much involvement in it, apart from being asked to speak about Project Infant and its mission — but this year, it was an entirely different story. One of the organisers, Carmel Cantwell had asked for assistance in trying to find the remaining 107 names, as only 816 were known. I worked with my amazing volunteers at Project Infant and over the course of 3 months, we unearthed 29 new names, which consisted of 27 children and 2 mothers. I read them out at the commemoration, with a promise: to find the remaining 78.

Since then, we’ve found another 8 children, bringing the total down to 70. But, while it may look promising from an outsider’s point of view - I must admit, I don’t feel so hopeful.

According to the Commission of Investigation’s statistical report for Bessborough, 761 children connected to Bessborough died there while another 129 children died in St Finbarr’s Hospital, Cork. 15 more died in other city hospitals (presumably Cork, but it may not be) such as the Victoria Hospital and South Infirmary. 12 more died at private addresses, which would be very difficult to identify (for the record, we’ve found one of them). 4 children died in private mother and baby homes, one of which was Mrs Grant’s Home on 81 South Mall, Cork where 3 children died (and I think I’ve identified those but am not certain) but it doesn’t tell me what the other one is.

Out of the 37 we have found, 12 of them were found thanks to a volunteer at Project Infant who had identified a pattern, in 1947, 1948 and 1949 - there were a number of deaths of children who were a ‘Son / Daughter of Maid’ with a former address of ‘Blackrock, Cork’. I bought five certificates and four of them, I could immediately confirm as being Bessborough children. In the second batch, out of nine certificates, eight of them were Bessborough children.

But now, I’m left wondering what am I missing, that I can’t identify the remaining 70 children. I worry that I might not be able to find their names. I tried one other avenue, making an FOI (Freedom of Information) request to the government department which was in charge of the Commission, with one request. I wanted a list of names and dates of death for children who died in Bessborough between 1922 and 1973.

If you’re wondering why I stopped at 1973 and not 1998, when Bessborough closed, it was because of a previous query I sent. I sent a similar one which was declined as it would involve ‘revealing private information’, a reason I can understand when dealing with something as sensitive as this & I will admit I probably should have thought through better. So in my most recent one, I asked up to 1973, because the information would be online on Irish Genealogy, which I (foolishly) imagined wouldn’t be as much of a problem as my first query was.

Reader, I was wrong. My FOI was declined on the same grounds as the first one, because it would involve ‘revealing personal information’, despite the two things I asked for, would already be on Irish Genealogy. So, after receiving that - it’s left me feeling a lot more worried than when I began. My volunteers and I have been thorough in our search which despite that, we’re left scratching our heads wondering what we’re missing.

I just hope that at some point in the (not so distant) future, those 70 additional names, will finally be known and properly acknowledged.

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If you’ve gotten to this point, thank you! Please keep reading, this part is just housekeeping, but it’s important if you’re considering subscribing to this blog or are already subscribed.

I had set up a separate Substack blog for Project Infant Updates so that it wasn’t mixing in with mine. But, I was tinkering around with Substack and discovered that you can have multiple sections, so you can choose what you want delivered to your inbox. So, now any updates for Project Infant from now on, will now move here and will have its own section so I just have to worry about managing one Substack page. Any subscribers on Project Infant’s Substack page will be imported here and notified accordingly. [I just have to get round to doing it!]

Project Infant’s new section!

So, how to opt in to updates? At the bottom of this email, you will see an unsubscribe button. [If you’re fed up of me already, you can continue to unsubscribe — I am being sarcastic here, honest!] When you press that, you’ll have sliders for what you can opt in and out of.

Dan’s ThinkTank is just the usual stuff you receive from me.

Project Infant Updates is now the new home for any progress updates relating to Project Infant.

The Irish Genealogy Podcast is my podcast, with viewable transcripts available.

Whatever you turn on will affect what you receive from me and autosaves your changes, so you don’t have to press a save button. If you decide at a later date, you want to receive emails for another section, just go to the unsubscribe button again at the bottom of this email [or any email you receive from me] and make your changes.

[No need to opt in to the new chat threads, I don’t use those.]

Thank you for reading this post to the very end. Stay tuned for more…