THIS MONTH, PLANNING permission was granted for a 140-bed apartment complex at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork.

More than 900 babies are thought to have died at this site, with burial records in existence for 64.

This project’s reaching completion would cut off access to answers for those affected by this institution.

A full excavation of human remains has never been conducted. I stand in support of the Bessborough Mother and Baby ‘Home’ Support Group by opposing the building of apartments on this site.

This is a site of conscience that cannot be concreted over.

It is saddening to see the echoes of Ireland’s conservative past rear its ugly head with this announcement. I myself was born to a single mother at the time in the late eighties. She experienced a huge amount of stigma as a single mother in rural Ireland. I still feel it myself.

I still think a lot about the injustice that was done to her. I grew up hearing about places like Bessborough and the women who were sent there, through no choice of their own.

Protesters called this week for the halt of a planned apartment development on the former Bessborough Mother and Baby Home lands in Blackrock, Cork. Rolling News Rolling News

At the time, whether a woman decided to keep her baby as a........

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