Ireland: 1,090 child deaths established at Sean Ross Abbey, and a year in which 60 infants died against 120 births with the department making no comment

Proceedings

1. 2021-01-12 · final report published

   Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Ireland (statutory commission established under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004). The Commission established from the institutional records that 1,090 children born in or admitted to Sean Ross Abbey, the mother and baby home run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Roscrea, died in infancy or early childhood, and confirmed 1,061 of those deaths — 97.34% — against General Register Office records. The figure covers children who died in the institution, children who died in hospital after transfer from it, and children born to women who had been resident there but gave birth elsewhere. Most of the deaths, 79%, occurred between 1932 and 1947, with mortality peaking between 1936 and 1942 when 95 and 82 deaths respectively were recorded. On official knowledge, the Commission recorded that for the year ending March 1937 the Department of Local Government and Public Health reported 120 births and 60 infant deaths at Sean Ross, and that 'no comment was made about this very high death rate'.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• an institution to which unmarried mothers were sent because of the religious and social opprobrium attached to birth outside marriage
• custody of mothers and infants held by a religious congregation across four decades
• a death rate recorded in official returns and passed over without remark