{"id":353509,"date":"2026-03-19T01:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/353509\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T01:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:18:11","slug":"protest-over-development-plans-for-bessborough-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/353509\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest over development plans for Bessborough site"},"content":{"rendered":"

A protest against the construction of a 140\u2011unit apartment development on the site of the Bessborough mother and baby home has been held outside Leinster House.<\/p>\n

The ‘No Building Over Bessborough” received support from across the Opposition benches and called for State intervention on the matter.<\/p>\n

Developer Estuary View Enterprises has been granted permission for the large-scale residential development at Bessborough<\/a> in Ballinure, Blackrock in Cork.<\/p>\n

The development will involve the demolition of ten existing agricultural buildings and log cabin structures and the construction of 140 residential apartments across three blocks.<\/p>\n

Two existing farmyard buildings are set to be redeveloped as amenities for residents.<\/p>\n

This will include a library, a lounge, a workspace and a function space.<\/p>\n

The planning has been granted by Cork City Council, subject to 70 conditions.<\/p>\n

\"Close<\/p>\n

\"Close-up<\/p>\n

Labour senator Laura Harmon said her party will be lodging an appeal with Carmel Cantwell, whose mother was in Bessborough “so there can be no building on this sacred site”.<\/p>\n

Ms Harmon said it would “unacceptable” to “build over a “site like this”.<\/p>\n

She said it should be a memorial and “used for education”.<\/p>\n

“We should have schools going in there to learn about our shameful history and how we treated women,” the senator said.<\/p>\n

“We can’t concrete over this part of our history,” said Ms Harmon.<\/p>\n

“We have a shameful history in this country in how we dealt with pregnancy, in terms of how we dealt with women who were pregnant who were unmarried at the time,” she added.<\/p>\n

“We need to get the truth out there. We need to ascertain how many babies are buried at Bessborough.”<\/p>\n

The senator said 859 babies who died in the home are still unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

“We need answers in relation to this. The survivors need answers. The public need answers,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Mary
\nMary Lou McDonald addresses protesters<\/p>\n

Speaking at the protest, Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald asked: “When does sorry mean sorry.”<\/p>\n

“It matters that the State understands that women and children are not second best,” she added.<\/p>\n

Earlier, People before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said: “As somebody who was born in a mother and baby home… I am very conscious of the sensitivity for those whose lives were wrecked by the church and state policies in this country.”<\/p>\n

He said the proposed build is “an insult to the trauma that they suffered”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A protest against the construction of a 140\u2011unit apartment development on the site of the Bessborough mother and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-353509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}