After 67 years, the search for two missing Bessborough babies goes on

The sister of twin babies missing for 67 years from a former Cork mother and baby institution has said that, despite an intervention from Taoiseach Micheál Martin on the future of the former Bessborough lands, “the work is only beginning”.

Mr Martin said on Friday that he has asked Cork City Council to engage with the owners of the grounds of the former mother and Baby institution to “explore all options for the future of the site”.

It is believed that the Government is willing to financially support Cork City Council in purchasing the Bessborough land, should negotiations with the landowners prove successful.

Last week, An Coimisiún Pleanála gave the green light for 106 apartments to be built on the site of the former mother and baby home.

The decision, which was made despite concerns that the bodies of hundreds of missing children may be buried on the land, caused distress in Cork’s extended survivor community.

Mary Donovan, whose twin siblings have been missing from Bessborough since 1959, says the planning decision devastated her.

Twins Vincent Joseph and Ann Veronica were born to 18-year-old Margaret Mary Finn at Bessborough at 8.50pm on Tuesday, March 24, 1959.

Ann Veronica died the next day, and Vincent Joseph the day after.

Both babies were registered with the General Register Office as having died at St Finbarr’s Hospital from “atelectasis prematurity”, a condition associated with the collapse of part or all of a lung.

It was their mother’s second incarceration in Bessborough. Two years earlier, Margaret had given birth to a son there, who was taken from her for adoption. Mary says: 

The first thing the nuns took was my mother’s name. 

“The first time, they told her she was Dorothea, the second time Eva. 

Margaret died in 2014, and her eldest child passed away a year later. She was held in a number of psychiatric institutions and Magdalene laundries throughout her life. Margaret’s records show she had 13 pregnancies and suffered multiple miscarriages.

Mary has been searching for her twin siblings for years, and although for a time she believed they might have been adopted and brought to the US, she now feels they are dead.

“I have to believe they’re among the 859 missing babies,” she says.

Mary Donovan with her mother Margaret Mary. Margaret Mary was twice sent to Bessborough, in 1957 and again in 1959. Her twins Vincent Joseph and Ann Veronica Finn are among 859 children missing from the institution. Picture courtesy Mary Donovan

“My brother and sister would be 67, and I would love if they were still alive, so I wouldn’t feel so alone.

“I have no family left alive. I have to be the voice of my mother; I have to be the voice of my brother and sister.”

Mary believes the twins are buried somewhere on the Bessborough grounds.

“Where else could they be? I searched 17 graveyards around Cork City for Ann Veronica and Vincent Joseph, and there’s no sign of them.”

She said of the Taoiseach’s intervention: “At least now we will have a place for us to come in our own time and remember our family members.

“The work is only beginning, and we need to have a full examination of the grounds, but hopefully now we can have that, and please God we can find our loved ones.

“They were people, not numbers. They were real people, like my mother and my brother and sister.”

Bessborough House was built in 1760 and sits on what was originally a 200-acre estate in Balliure/Ballinure, on the outskirts of Cork City. That estate has been significantly diminished over the years. Only 60 acres remain undeveloped.

The Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran Bessborough as a mother and baby home from 1922 to 1998, and it was the largest such institution in Ireland. It was also the last to cease trading.

Between 1922 and 1998, a total of 9,768 mothers and 8,938 babies passed through Bessborough.

The General Register Office was informed of 816 infant deaths in the institution. The nuns separately informed the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation that 923 infant deaths occurred in their care, a discrepancy of 107 children.

The nuns only kept 64 burial records, and as a result the final resting places of 859 children are unknown.

The burial records of 19 women are also missing.

Mary Donovan’s twin siblings, Vincent Joseph and Ann Veronica, died within 48 hours of their birth. ‘I have to believe they’re among the 859 missing babies,’ she says. File picture: Gareth Chaney

In 2021, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation found it was “highly likely” some of the missing children were buried on the institution’s grounds.

For survivors, while the Taoiseach’s intervention will be welcome, their wait for answers, and for peace, continues.

A rally by Bessborough survivors and campaigners is planned to take place outside Cork City Library on Grand Parade at 2.30pm today, Saturday.