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The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast Podcast
Bessborough’s missing babies with Donal O’Keeffe

Bessborough’s missing babies with Donal O’Keeffe

The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast vor 6 Monaten

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The Deirdre O'Shaughnessy Podcast

The best stories from the Irish Examiner brought to you by Opinion Editor Deirdre O’Shaughnessy

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The granting of planning permission for 140 apartments on the
site of Cork’s most infamous mother and baby institution last
week has caused deep upset to survivors and relatives of those
who were incarcerated in Bessborough.

Hundreds of babies died at Bessborough between 1922 and 1994, and
the Mother and Baby Homes Commission found they were most likely
buried on the sprawling site of the former institution. Their
bodies have never been located, and now there are plans to build
on the site.

Donal O’Keeffe, reporter with the Irish Examiner and the Echo,
was the first to unearth the names of all those babies born at
the home whose deaths were registered there or shortly after
discharge. The names were listed on an Irish Examiner front page
that received worldwide coverage on 13 January 2021.

Despite this and the excavation currently ongoing at the Tuam
institution, no dig is planned at Bessborough. Taoiseach Micheál
Martin said in the Dáil this week he believes the City Council
should have acquired the site for recreational and memorial
purposes.

In today’s episode Donal recounts the history of the institution,
its infant mortality rate of up to 80% in the 1940s, and the
campaign by survivors to memorialise their lost relatives as well
as this latest development.

Read Donal’s coverage here:

Plans for 140 new apartments on historic Bessborough site in Cork
City approved

Bessborough planning decision shocking for mother and baby home
survivors

Michael Moynihan: The prospect of building on Bessborough babies'
bones should anger us all

Remembering the names of children who died in Bessborough Mother
and Baby Home

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