Photograph: Alan BetsonPeople Before Profit TD Richard Boyd-Barrett said his personal experience of having been born in a mother and baby home informed his decision to oppose a proposed housing development at Bessborough, Co Cork. The protest was organised by Social Democrats’ Dublin city councillor Noelle Brown, a survivor of Bessborough, and a long-time campaigner on the issue of mother and baby homes. Campaigners stated that records show 923 children died in Bessborough between 1924 and 1994, but the graves of only 64 children are accounted for. Brown said the grounds of Bessborough amounted to a burial site and would be a “violation of those children’s rights to a respectful burial”. He said the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Bay Homes carried out a cartographic and landscape assessment of possible unrecorded burial arrangements in Bessborough and a site survey.

Source: The Irish Times March 19, 2026 15:12 UTC