Listen Live

Call for memorial and garden at Bessborough

Thursday, 3 June 2021 11:10

Calls have been made for the establishment of a memorial and park on the former Bessborough estate.

It comes after plans for apartments on the site of the former Mother and Baby home were rejected by An Bord Pleanala at end of last month. 

The 179 unit developement was on privately owned land on the site at Bessborough and overlaps on an area marked as a burial ground.

The plans raised serious concern with fears that hundreds of babies could be buried on the 200-acre estate on the city’s southside.

Local Cllr Kieran McCarthy is now leading calls for the installation of a park and appropriate commemoration for the survivors and relatives of those who passed through Bessborough.

"I would be calling that the council and central government to sit down with the owners and the developer of Bessborough's land and see what actually can be down.

"For the developer now to build on the land there would have to be a mass excavation, I know that the Survivor's Alliance group in Cork don't want that, and I think a lot of people don't want to see a mass excavation where babies could potentially be found.

"I think the most appropriate thing is for central government, and local government and the developer to sit down and come up with a proper plan for the site to remember the people who could possibly be buried underneath the ground."

Share

More from Cork