Mother reveals how her baby 'was just left to die' in Cork mother-and-baby home
A woman has revealed how her baby boy "was just left to die" days after he was born in a mother-and-baby home in Co. Cork in 1961.
Bridget, who is in her 70s and lives in England, rang RTE Radio One’s Liveline today to tell of how her son William was born in Bessborough, Cork, but died after only six weeks.
She described how her baby fell ill after only three days in the institution, but was only brought to hospital nearly three weeks later despite Bessborough knowing that her baby "was desperately ill".
She said she believes her baby would have survived if he received the medical attention he needed at the time.
She also revealed how nuns said her baby "would be easier to sell" because he was a boy, and they insisted on giving him a Catholic name, rather than the name she wanted, for the same reason.
Bridget tells how she became preganant at the age of 17 while working in Ireland. She then went to work in the UK after joining a work agency who gave her the travel fare.
"They paid my fare so I went to London and was working away, but I had it in the back of my mind, ’what am I going to do?’," an emotional Bridget told Liveline.
"I went to the confession box and told the priest, I told the priest, I confessed. At that time it was the most terrible sin.
"The priest gave me an address and it was for the Catholic Crusade of Rescue and they arranged for me to go to back to Ireland. I was told I had to go back to Ireland to have my baby."
"Now I realise of course I needn’t have. If I knew how things worked I could have stayed here and had my baby, and still have my baby."
Bridget described how she had nobody to turn to and had planned to have her baby on the Underground in London before she decided to approach a priest.
"I had plans to have my baby on the Underground because there was nowhere. I am sure I’m not the only Irish girl [who would have had nowhere else to go]. It was out of desperation and fear, complete fear. We were just sitting ducks for the people who wanted our babies."
'I will die with the pain... how dare they treat young vulnerable women the way they did, they really took advantage' Bridget #Liveline
— Liveline (@rteliveline) March 7, 2017
That is how Bridget stayed in the UK until just two months before her due date when she arrived at the home in Cork where she gave birth to her "beautiful baby boy" in late October of 1961.
She said: "I got to Cork Harbour and a car was waiting with a man and I was taken to Bessborough, I was doing everything I was told to do.
She then described what happened to her when she arrived in Bessborough.
She said: "Straightaway you could feel the horror of it. My clothes were taken. Everything was taken. My handbag, my coat, everything personal. I was given shoes and a uniform, all the girls wore the same.
"I went there in August and my baby was born in October, late October.
"It’s taken 58 years for me to tell you this. It happened to me, it happened to my baby. How dare they deny it."
The baby weighed 7lb 11oz and was healthy until he fell ill three days later, around the same time Bridget became ill.
She said: "Nineteen days in Bessborough and I was longing to be rescued, longing to be saved.
"Bessborough knew that my baby was desperately ill. They knew I was ill. I was dragging my foot around for weeks.
"He was brought into St Finbarr’s Hospital after 19 days, he lived for 19 more days. The whole of my life has been a terrible ordeal.
"This little boy could have been saved. He really was a fighter. He could have been a beautiful healthy boy. He could have been saved so easily.
"He was brought to me for half an hour in the evening."
Bridget wanted her baby boy to be called William after her father and his father, but instead the nuns wanted to put the name Gerard on his birth certificate in order to make him "easier to sell".
She said: "I named him William, that was with a battle Joe, it was an English Protestant name, they said they would call him Gerard and on his birth certificate he is called Gerard.
"Miraculously, on his death certificate his name is William.
A baby with the name Gerard would be easier to sell - Bridget tells #Liveline now, mother to William, born in 1961 https://t.co/eYAv132VXD
— Liveline (@rteliveline) March 7, 2017
"Gerard would be of no further use. Gerard would have been easier to sell than William. Gerard was a name that could be easily sold to a Catholic family.
"But William got back his rightful name. William was the name of my father and grandfather. The name William was precious to me."
In a bizarre twist, Bridget’s daughter Carmel bought a house which faces onto the Angel’s Plot at Bessborough almost 20 years ago. Bridget said she went to her daughter’s house regularly and saw the graveyard, but did not know where her baby was buried.
She said: "I broke down and I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I told Carmel that my baby was buried in Bessborough, she was brilliant. She encouraged me to go back and ask where my baby was buried.
"There I was told he was buried in the Angel’s Plot. The person took me down and showed me where. She tapped the ground where my baby was buried.
"But the same person admitted later on she didn’t know where the babies were buried.
"So now I’m totally confused."
Bridget thanked her "wonderful" children for their support.
She said: "It’s taken me years to come out and they’ve been wonderful. Hopefully I will live to see the outcome of Tuam.
"If that was done [DNA testing on babies’ remains] I would die happy."
Earlier on #Liveline, @talktojoe1850 spoke to Bridget, to this day she does not know where her son William has been buried...#TuamBabies pic.twitter.com/51tEumzWyZ
— Liveline (@rteliveline) March 7, 2017
Bridget said her son is in her thoughts and prayers every day.
"I think about him everyday. I pray and mention his name everyday, because he needn’t have died.
"He was a lovely, beautiful, healthy baby."
