A WOMAN WHOSE infant brother died in the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork has expressed shock at a decision by the city council to grant planning permission for apartments on the site.

Developer Estuary View Enterprises has been granted permission for the large scale residential development at Bessborough in Ballinure, Blackrock in Cork.

The development will involve the demolition of ten existing agricultural buildings and log cabin structures and the construction of 140 residential apartments across three blocks.

Two existing farmyard buildings are set to be redeveloped as amenities for residents. This will include a library, a lounge, a workspace and a function space.

The proposal also involves a new pedestrian and cycle bridge, upgrades to an existing pedestrian crossing, and the creation of outdoor amenity areas.

The planning has been granted by Cork City Council subject to 70 conditions. The developer has to retain the services of a suitably qualified archaeolgist to monitor all of the site works prior to development.

The excavation has to be monitored by a forensic archaeologist and an osteo archaeologist/forensic anthropologist with expertise in skeletal juvenile remains.

The location of items of evidential value indicative of potential burials such as coffin timber and nails, has to be noted and a record completed in compliance with forensic archaeological standards.

In the event of human remains being located during the course of this excavation all work “shall cease at all parts of the proposed development site and all relevant authorities, including the City Coroner and An Garda Síochana, will be informed of the location of unidentified and previously unrecorded modern human remains.”

Meanwhile, Carmel Cantwell whose mother Bridget gave birth to a son William at Bessbourgh in December 1960 is among those who are opposed to any development at the site.

Her mother was told by nuns over two decades ago that William was buried on the grounds of the home. She subsquently found out that he was buried in a “pauper’s grave” in Carr’s Hill cemetery in the city.

Cantwell says that Bessborough is a place that holds “so much trauma.”

“The original site (of Bessborough) was 210 acres, 150 has already been built on providing housing, a hospital, offices and a retail park.

“Was it too much to ask that the last 60 acres surrounding the buildings be preserved as a park of remembrance for the 923 babies that died, the 31 women and the nearly 19,000 women and children that went through Bessborough, the majority separated through forced adoption?

“The grounds have never been fully examined. There are witnesses to say they saw burials in the area just outside the farmyard and against the farmyard wall.”

Cork Labour Party Councillor Peter Horgan has also described as “devastating” the granting of permission for the project by Cork City Council

“I will take time to read over each condition, which numbers to 70 such conditions ranging from archaeological to ecological to public health. I firmly remain of the belief that building on this site is wrong.

At least five sections of the 70 conditions refer to discovery of human remains potential in the construction of this site and the need for expertise in juvenile skeletal remains.

This in itself outlines that this is not an ordinary site. No state agency apart from Uisce Éireann an Inland fisheries gave a viewpoint which is deeply troubling.

Bessborough became notorious for the cruelty and neglect of mothers an babies.

Of the more than 900 babies who died at Bessborough or in Cork hospitals having been transferred from the mother and baby home over the course of seven decades, less than 70 have known burial sites.

The newly approved plans follow a failed bid by Estuary View Enterprises in July 2025 when An Coimisuin Pleanala ruled that the proposal didn’t meet the planning requirements in terms of unit mix.

In its new application the developer said that restrictions in statutory plans within apartment developments are not warranted other than in specific circumstances.