IRELAND
Sunday Independent
Jody Corcoran
Published 15/06/2014
Who was Mary Connolly? She died on April 30, 1944, one of three children to die that day of measles. It seems likely she had spina bifida, that is, her spinal column had failed to form properly while she was developing in the womb.
Contributing to her death was “congenital hydrocephalus”, more commonly known as “water on the brain”, the cause of which is usually genetic but can be also acquired within the first few months of life.
What was remarkable about Mary is that she lived for seven years before she seems to have succumbed to an outbreak of measles which also claimed the lives of Julia Kelly and Catherine Harrison that day.
In the language of the time, under cause of death, there is also written the word “idiot” alongside Mary Connolly’s name. It is coldly shocking to see now, but was commonly used in the Tuam mother and baby home, and elsewhere, at the time.
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