Luke Peter Silke
More than 50 children died in the Glenamaddy ‘Children’s Home’ which predated the Tuam Mother and Baby Home and was operated by the same nuns between the years of 1922 and 1925.
On the first day of January 1922, a nun by the name of Sr Hortense McNamara notified the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the district of Glenamaddy of the deaths of Bridget Naughten, Mary Woods and Martin Collins. Three infants who had died under her care in the Children’s Home in Glenamaddy over Christmas week.
Bridget Naughten died just two days before Christmas from Bronchitis. She was six months old. Mary Woods died of Gastritis just five days later on 28th December 1921 aged seven months. Three days later, on New Year’s Eve 1921, one-month-old Martin Collins died of what is termed a ‘congenital debility’.
In recent years Dr Catherine Corless, a local historian in Tuam made international waves when her research revealed that 798 babies died in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home during the time period that it was operated, by the Bon Secours Sisters, between 1925 and 1961. Sr Hortense McNamara was the Reverend Mother in the Tuam home during that time. Dr Corless’ research on the topic sparked a government-initiated Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes which published its final report earlier this year.
In recent times I have conducted research and can reveal that between the time of the closure of the Glenamaddy Workhouse in November 1921 and the opening of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in 1925, Sr Hortense informed the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the Glenamaddy district of at least fifty infant deaths which had occurred under her care in the ‘Children’s Home’ which was in operation during that four-year period.
Sr Hortense was in the habit of reporting the deaths in chunks. She reported three deaths on 1st January 1922, seven more on 4th April 1922, three more on the 6th June 1922. On the 2nd August 1922 she again reported four deaths to the registrar, followed by six on the 29th August, eight on the 14th November and on 30th December 1922 she reported a further two deaths. In all she reported 33 deaths in the year 1922.
In 1923 Sr Hortense reported thirteen more deaths, followed by four in 1924 and four in 1925. The total death rate over the four years stood at 54 infants. (NB: The database in which these death records are stored was extremely difficult to navigate so it is very possible that this figure is higher).
I include below the list of those who died:
- Bridget Naughten, 23rd Dec 1921, six months old – Bronchitis
- Mary Woods, 28th Dec 1921, seven months old – Gastritis
- Martin Collins, 31st Dec 1921, one month old – Congenital Debility
- Patrick Coates, 1st Jan 1922, ten months old – Bronchitis
- Maggie Rabbitte, 19th Jan 1922, fifteen months old – Gastritis
- Thomas Sheridan, 25th Jan 1922, four months old – Congenital Debility
- Thomas Devin, 28th Jan 1922, four months old – Congenital Debility
- Mary Crowe, 1st Feb 1922, one year old – TB?
- Kate Walsh, 20th Feb 1922, ten months old – Bronchitis
- Kate Lynskey, 12th Mar 1922, ten months old – Pneumonia
- Christopher King, 29th Mar 1922, one year old – Congestion of the Lungs
- Mary Noone, 19th Apr 1922, eight months old – Congenital Debility
- Christopher Mead, 25th May 1922, eight months old – Congenital Debility
- Annie Howley, 26th May 1922, three months old – Congenital Debility
- Joseph Hession, 2nd Jun 1922, fifteen months old –
- Josephine Welby, 3rd Jun 1922, six months old – Tubercular Meningitis
- Patrick Black, 8th Jun 1922, three months old – Bronchitis
- Thomas Joyce, 9th Jun 1922, four months old – Tonsillitis
- Thomas Galway, 12th Jun 1922, six months old – Gastritis
- Mary Power, 19th Jun 1922, ten months old – Bronchitis
- Patricia McNicholas, 25th Jun 1922, three months old – Bronchitis
- Martin Conneely, 2nd Jul 1922, eight months old – Meningitis
- Mary Margaret Reynolds, 3rd July 1922, four months old –
- Mary McDonagh, 16th July 1922, six months old – Pneumonia
- Mary Hallinan, 27th Aug 1922, one month old – Congenital Debility
- Teresa Cleary, 2nd Sept 1922, three years old – Congenital Debility
- John Burke, 6th Sept 1922, six years old –
- Mary Quinn, 16th Sept 1922, two months old –
- Mary Comer, 23rd Sept 1922, three months old – TB?
- Patrick Gorum, 14th Oct 1922, five years old –
- Eileen Gavin, 7th Nov 1922, one year old – Meningitis
- Mary Wilkinson, 29th Nov 1922, three months old –
- Francis Griffin, 28th Dec 1922, two months old – Gastritis
- Delia Queeney, 8th May 1923, one year old – Congested Lungs
- Patrick Coheeney, 19th May 1923, five months old –
- Patrick Geraghty, 28th May 1923, one year old –
- Mary Power, 4th Jun 1923, nine years old – Spinal Disease
- Joseph Donnellan, 5th Jun 1923, two months old – Congested Lungs
- John Hynes, 17th Jun 1923, two months old –
- Patrick Devine, 20th Jun 1923, seven months old –
- Kathleen Maloney, 1st Jul 1923, one year old –
- Mary Kerrigan, 4th Jul 1923, two months old – Whooping Cough
- Maggie Ferry, 11th Jul 1923, one month old – Whooping Cough
- Mary Anne Collier, 12th Jul 1923, one year old – Whooping Cough
- Mary Anne Dolan, 15th Jul 1923, one year old – Gastritis
- Bessie Power, 23rd Jul 1923, eight years old – Spinal Disease
- Ellen Kearns, 11th Oct 1924, sixteen months old – Meningitis
- Michael Jordan, 8th Nov 1924, fifteen months old – Gastritis
- Thomas Mc M? , 16th Nov 1924, three months old – Congenital Debility
- Gerard Flynn, 21st Nov 1924, five months old – Meningitis
- Joseph Grealish, 19th Dec 1924, one year old –
- Mary Ryder, 27th Dec 1924, six months old –
- (Illegible), 5th Jan 1925, six months old –
- Tim Badger, 6th Jan 1925, one year old –
The Children’s Home in Glenamaddy appears in some newspaper articles of the time, with the Connacht Tribune reporting in their 7th March 1925 edition that at a recent committee meeting, “Sr Hortense, matron, reported that there were, in the Children’s Home in Glenamaddy nineteen mothers and one hundred children”.
The Connacht Tribune had previously provided some coverage in February 1923 of the monthly meeting of the County Home and County Homes Assistance Committee. The reporting by the Tribune gives a great deal of insight into the attitudes that the authorities had towards the Children’s Home in Glenamaddy. At that meeting a Parish Priest, Rev Dr Dignan brought up the issue of the transfer of power from the Board of Health to the Committee. It was noted by the Secretary of the Committee that the only powers retained by the Health Board related to fixing salaries and the carrying out of structural alterations to buildings, and that the Committee currently had “the power of making all appointments now, which was formerly the privilege of the Board of Health”.
Dr Dignan then proceeds to make a joke about how the Committee “can do nothing with the Children’s Home – burn it down or change it?” The Connacht Tribune included reference to the laughter from fellow committee members at this remark, in their report on the meeting. (The joke may be in reference to the IRA’s partial burning of the Workhouse in 1921).
A separate, more serious and perhaps tense conversation ensued at the meeting when Dr Dignan gave his views on a recent report on the home; “I believe it was said that our report on the Children’s Home was greatly exaggerated”. To which the Chairman replies that he was speaking to a representative from the Glenamaddy district “who said that the report was a very mild one. The condition of the place in scandalous”.
Above: Connacht Tribune 17th February 1923
Despite the research I have conducted over the past while, I have been unable to determine where the 54 infants who died in the Children’s Home in Glenamaddy between the years 1921 and 1925 are buried. I will keep my blog updated as I gather more information.
lukesilke98@gmail.com
Luke Peter Silke 