IRELAND
Irish Central

Frances Mulraney @FrancesMulraney November 10,2015

The Register of Deaths from Bessborough Mother and Baby home reveals that during certain months in the 1940s the death rate among children living in the home amounted to a child dying roughly every second day.

For many years, Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, in Co. Cork, run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, was an institution where pregnant and unmarried women were referred to before they gave birth as, at the time, having a child outside of marriage was considered a serious sin in Ireland.

Several such homes were established throughout Ireland to look after these children and their mothers, but many have since been the subject of controversy regarding the treatment of women and children within their walls and the accusations of illegal adoptions to couples overseas.

In 2012, a damning report by the…