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Born at bessboro help

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  • 03-11-2014 11:30am
    #1
    carcof
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭


    Hi I was born 1966 at bessboro however my mum took me with her and went to England how would this be possible given the history can anyone help


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    #2
    Ghekko
    Closed Accounts Posts: 942 ✭✭✭Ghekko


    Did she manage to keep you or were you adopted in Uk? I guess she was lucky if she was able to keep you. She must have had support from somewhere to be able to afford to go. Not all babies born in these homes were put up for adoption even though it was probably the case with the majority. What age was she when you were born?


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    #3
    carcof
    Registered Users Posts: 6 ✭carcof


    Hi yes my mum kept me in uk I don't know who helped her ? She was 23 when I was born thanks


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    #4
    Ghekko
    Closed Accounts Posts: 942 ✭✭✭Ghekko


    I just figured she would have needed financial support to get to UK. Lots of parents would have sent their daughters to mother and baby homes with the intention that baby would be adopted. Have you asked her about how she even ended up in Bessboro? Does she have a relationship with her parents/family? Fair play to her for taking you with her. Thousands were not that lucky.


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    #5
    rinsjwind
    Registered Users Posts: 71 ✭✭rinsjwind


    Hi carcof

    Your mum must be a remarkable woman.

    What she did wasn't actually impossible, obviously : -), just extremely difficult. The challenges she would have faced to keep you in that time and place would have been huge and, as Ghekko pointed out, very few mothers found the courage and strength to do it.

    From the outset, she would have been under enormous and relentless pressure to place you for adoption from all sides, the nuns in bessboro (who had a very lucrative little sideline going extracting large and often ongoing "donations" from successful adopters), health and social services, society in general and, perhaps most of all, her own family (assuming that they even knew about the pregnancy). Unless she was very lucky she would have found little or no financial or moral support from anyone if she expressed a wish to keep you.

    Then, once she had somehow overcome all that and gotten herself and her baby over to the UK, she would not have found it all that much more welcoming and supportive of an unmarried mother than our own pathetic priest ridden excuse for a country was. Your mum would still have had to deal with a considerable degree of prejudice and discrimination from large sectors of English society and probably had a tough time getting sorted for accommodation, employment, childcare etc.

    I hope she's still with us and that you both have had a good life together.


    Warm regards

    Rins


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