More than a name

Behind every name, there is a story.

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

* = names changed

On a cold winter’s morning in November of 1970 — one of the most important people in my life now came into being: my Mum. However, she was born in somewhat different circumstances compared to children who were born in the ‘ideal’ setting in Ireland during that time, Mum was born in a mother-and-baby home - in Bessborough. Her birthday, which was only yesterday, felt different. I thought of my grandmother, Ana* and how she must feel now that she has reunited with Mum and her half-sister, Rochelle*.

Ana* wouldn’t have been able to celebrate it with her until Mum was 50. [She’s now 54] — but I suppose I have a habit of defaulting to looking at what some might consider to be minor things but I consider to be quite major.

About a month ago, activist Carmel Cantwell and I travelled to the Roscommon General Register Office. I had been in talks with them to try to reach an agreement about finding birth records for about 450 infants (found by volunteers at Project Infant) to determine whether or not they were Bessborough babies and instead of the massive bill it would’ve left me with they gave me permission to visit and conduct my research.

We got there early enough to try to make our time worth it. I couldn’t take photos there, but the place was huge! It was like a genealogist’s candy shop. There were shelves and shelves of boxes each with Ireland’s civil records inside. We got a tour from the person in charge of looking after all of the records and he was excited to give the tour as I was getting it.

Before we got started with the list, we decided to have a test run to find someone using index books. So I went looking for Mum. I looked in the index book, found Matthews*, found Beth Matthews* and then got the reference, subsequently finding the corresponding box. We went leafing through pages until we found her. Her original birth entry was staring right back at me. Even though it was something I’d already known about and had seen, it was still an emotional thing to see it listed amongst everyone else. When births [or deaths] in mother and baby homes were registered, they tended to be registered in clusters.

So, I saw the cluster of births my Mum was part of. She was the 3rd of 4 children born in the space of a week. I just looked at the other three who were on the page and all I could think of was that there were three other people here on the page who would’ve been my mum’s crib mates in Bessborough. Were they all still alive? Where were they now? How did they leave Bessborough? (because my Mum was sent halfway up the country to be adopted from County Meath) Did they know they were born in Bessborough? What kind of lives did they lead? Hell, had I met them but never realised?

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After finding Mum’s entry, Carmel and I got to work. Scouring through boxes and boxes of records to find the ones we were after noting down and recording whether they were a Bessborough child or not. It took us the entire day to find the records. Out of the 450 records or so, we found 37 names from it. [See below]

List of the new names.

But, one thing that is a topic time and time again [and if it isn’t it should be] about the importance of doing what we can in trying to tell their stories. They’re part of a period of history, that there is still some hesitancy to discuss [either that or some think it is totally made up, which is wild to me, but they’re out there].

These children were wronged — the Commission [as I’ve said many a time] had an opportunity to publish these names but never did. No names would be known without the help of independent researchers and dedicated journalists who work to give survivors a voice and platform in the media.

So, if you happen to know or uncover someone in your family who died in an institution, help us fight for them, for them to have the dignity of the world knowing their name, for their right to have their burial place found and properly commemorated.

I’ll leave you on this. Carmel, who I’d mentioned above had met the Tánaiste, Micheál Martin yesterday and asked him questions [along with what I’d done with Roderic O’Gorman on November 15th]. Listen to how he responded to Carmel below.