IRELAND
Daily Mail (UK)
‘A miserable, emaciated child with a voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions’: Documents which reveal the tragic story of a short life at St Mary’s
By ALISON O’REILLY
PUBLISHED: 7 June 2014
It is the harrowing certificate that shows how 16-month-old John Desmond Dolan was described as being a ‘congenital idiot’ at the time of his death in St Mary’s Mother and Baby home.
John is one of the 796 children whose remains were left in a mass grave on the grounds of St Mary’s, which was run by the Sisters of Bon Secours.
Documents given to the Irish Mail on Sunday by the boy’s sister reveal how he had a healthy birth and weighed 8lbs 9oz when he was born at the Tuam home on February 22, 1946.
His mother Bridget Dolan, a farmer’s daughter from Clonfert, Co. Galway, gave birth to him in the presence of a woman known as Bina Rabbitte.
There are no details given of his father. Records from the home show how a health inspection was carried out in April 1947 by a man known as Mr Humphreys.
Despite being born a healthy baby, a year later John was described as a ‘miserable emaciated child with a voracious appetite and no control over his bodily functions’.
Doctors referred to John as ‘probably mental defective’.
That year there was an outbreak of measles in the home, which John contracted.
He died on June 11, 1947. On his death certificate it showed how Ms Rabbitte was again present at the time of John’s death.
It is understood she had been born in the home and remained on, assisting the nuns with the children.
John’s cause of death was recorded as ‘congential idiot and measles’.
His sister said: ‘He was born healthy and yet he died less than two years later. What is a congenital idiot? How could anyone call a child that?
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