Update #1

NEW CONTENT

Well, I was debating on whether I would end up using this update feed and lo-and-behold, I do!

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Two new homes have been added to the Project Infant website: Ard Mhuire, Dunboyne and St. Clare’s Children’s Home, Stamullen - both of which are in County Meath. It may seem like a lot however we’ve found three for Stamullen and only one for Ard Mhuire.

[On a personal note: Stamullen hits close to home as this is where my own mother was adopted, you can read more about her story here and here.]

Stamullen had not been investigated by the Commission of Investigation so this is unexplored territory!

Ard Mhuire, on the other hand had been researched by the Commission [click here for Ard Mhuire’s section in the Commission of Investigation report]. Having 37 deaths attributed to this home, the one death that had been added to our website is the only one to have happened in the home itself.

The others, according to the Commission:

Information relating to date of death was available for 34 of the 37 children. The available records show that 33 were born in Holles St hospital - 20 subsequently died there; five died in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital, Crumlin; three in Temple St Children’s Hospital; two in the Rotunda Hospital and one in Dunboyne. Place of death was not available for the remaining cases. The worst year for child deaths was 1975 - five children died that year. All five were born in Holles St hospital to women transferred from Dunboyne - three subsequently died in Holles St and the others died following transfer to Temple Street and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital. The birth place of the remaining child was not identified.

~ Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes (2021), Dunboyne Section, Statistical Analysis, pg. 25 [source: here]

So, both of these homes are being marked as ‘in progress’, meaning more will become available as more records become available.

PROGRESS UPDATE

That’s the new content sorted, here is the progress update. Six and a half months into our research into the St. Patrick’s (Pelletstown) Mother and Baby Home, we’re proud to report that we’ve uncovered the names of 2,298 people, the number comprises of 2,291 children and 7 women. This could not have been made possible without the help of the volunteers who have helped and continue to help me throughout.

But that’s not all, to show the impact - I decided to put out a wordcloud of all the surnames we’d found when I announced the last progress update. It hasn’t been updated but see if you see any familiar surnames.

Here’s a gallery with each of the individual starting letters as there are a lot of surnames!

That’s all, stay tuned for more!