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,…