Update #3
I want to just preface this by saying that, this will probably be the biggest update the website will receive, but it’s going to be significant and useful to so many.
So, I’ll reveal that first. It took us a year of on-and-off research to get to this stage and be able to announce that we’ve found and have added the names of 2,453 people who died in Pelletstown or people who are connected to Pelletstown.
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Operating from 1919 to 1985, while this wasn’t the longest-running mother and baby home - it had the highest death rate in Ireland at 3,658. That is more than Bessborough (954), Tuam (796) and Sean Ross Abbey (1,090) combined. While this addition of information does not include all, we are still working to try and find the remaining names and add them at a later date. I felt that it was important that the names we had found could be put out there and not sitting in a spreadsheet waiting for us to find the remaining names.
This research had been a massive undertaking and could not have been done without the help of volunteers: Alec, Jessica, Theresina and Lisa.
It was also quite eye-opening as in the 1,268 deaths that had a residence/origin listed, 8 of them came from England and Scotland, meaning that they could have been people brought to Ireland that were classed as PFIs (Pregnant From Ireland) brought back to Ireland to give birth. The only other possibility I could come up with is that they may have come to Ireland to escape the shame of being unwed and pregnant in their local area. Either way, this is international.
The Pelletstown names can be found by clicking here.
The Google map where I had pinned every single location mentioned in a death cert as a person’s residence / origin can be found here by looking at the Pelletstown ‘layer’.
MINOR ADDITIONS
With the new year of records, three more names for Bessborough were able to be added as well as two more for Dunboyne and two more for Temple Hill.
Transcriptions have also been added for Dunboyne and Stamullen. These were provided by Mel. Additionally, transcriptions for Castlepollard are in the pipeline too!
As part of the No-One Left Behind (NLB) initiative, we have added two births for people who were born in Kilrush Nursery in 1922 and 28 births for people in 1923.
UPCOMING ADDITIONS
While uploading the names for Pelletstown, other homes were being researched behind the scenes. So, the next home that will go onto the website will be the Clonakilty County Home. More on that in the next update!
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