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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