State abandoned in 1947 proposed investigation into almost 700 Bessborough deaths Decision came after the Co Cork mother and baby home was temporarily closed
Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 01:00 Donal O Keeffe
Between 1922 and in December 1946, 674 children died at Bessborough mother and baby home. File photograph: Provision
The State in 1947 abandoned a threatened special investigation into the deaths of nearly 700 children at the Bessborough mother and baby home, but warned that it could resume if the institution’s infant-mortality rate did not fall.
The decision to halt the investigation came after the State’s chief medical adviser, Dr James Deeny, had temporarily closed the Cork home and sacked the Sacred Heart nun then in charge.
I m one of the lucky ones, says Naas photographer born in Bessborough
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Naas woman Aishling Conway was born in September 1980 in Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork.
That December, at three months old, she arrived at her new home in Kingsfurze, Naas.
She is the youngest of three children adopted from Bessborough by a local couple, and says she is one of the ‘lucky ones’, having gone to a kind and caring family in Ireland.
Last week’s Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation Report revealed that thousands of children died at those homes during the last century; while countless more were shipped abroad for adoption.
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âThe mothers did not have much choice,â the commission acknowledged, even if it declined to describe them as âforced adoptionsâ. Societal and religious pressures, along with lack of financial supports, made it very difficult for women during much of the 1922-1998 period under review, to see how raising a child out of wedlock would be possible never mind desirable.