Whilst the Magdelene Sisters Laundry story is well entrenched in public consciousness there is another tale of sickening cruelty and badness that hasn’t been exposed. What is less well known is about the Bethany Home where Protestant Mothers and Children went. The Irish Republic has received great criticism over the years as to how it treated Protestants post-partition and this story is truly harrowing.
According to Wiki:
Bethany Home (sometimes called Bethany House or Bethany Mother and Child Home) was a residential home in Dublin, Ireland, mainly for women of the Protestant faith, who were convicted of petty theft, prostitution, infanticide, as well as women who were pregnant out of wedlock, and the children of these women. The home was run by evangelical Protestants, mainly (up to the 1960s) members of the Church of Ireland. It catered to “fallen women” and operated in Blackhall Place, Dublin (1921–34), and in Orwell Road, Rathgar (1934–72), until its closure. The home sent some children to Northern Ireland, England, and to the United States/ Canada.
More than 220 children died in Bethany Home between 1922–49 and 219 were buried in unmarked graves. There are many other stories of violence, sexual abuse and torture. The Bethany Survivors campaign has been established to seek redress from the Church of Ireland, other religious groups and also the Irish Government over this scandal. Unlike the Magdalene Laundries the Bethany Home was not included into the Irish Government’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The Magdalene campaign have given their full support for Bethany to be included and for its victims to seek redress. The question we have to ask is why is the Irish Government ignoring this?
Derek Leinster is the Chair of the Bethany Home Survivors campaign and he has been corresponding with us to bring this story out in the minds of people in the UK. He has said that it is a disgrace this story hasn’t received prominence in the UK media went it went on just across the Irish Sea in one of our former countries.
In his most recent letter he has written:
Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern addressed the Dáil on 11 May 1999 and said to survivors of residential institutions that he believed we were gravely wronged. He also said that society must do all it can to overcome the lasting effects of our ordeal. In his speech, Mr Ahern announced the setting up of a commission of inquiry into child abuse, which resulted in publication of the Ryan Report in May 2009. Under pressure, and after an indemnity deal was done with Roman Catholic religious orders (only), a redress commission was instituted.
I was excluded from consideration by Ryan and was denied access to the redress commission. I was told that Bethany Home, where I resided, did not ‘qualify’. 20 years later, now that Bethany does qualify, children’s minister Katherine Zappone, offers a lot less to Protestant-ethos Bethany survivors Home than the Taoiseach did then.
Derek Leinster at the Bethany Children’s memorial
Instead of an apology, the children’s minister said publicly she knows of no harm done to us. How can she be so blind when there is so much evidence of harm? While I am living proof, most of the remainder is beneath the earth in Mount Jerome cemetery, Harold’s Cross. 317 Bethany baby’s bodies and counting. What more does the minister want? Perhaps to deny until I too, die.
The state and the minister must apologise to the Protestant Bethany Home’s living survivors and to all survivors.
It seems there is no Bertie Ahern or any Good Friday Agreement sentiment today, or any humanity.
Shame on them.
Yours etc.,
Derek Leinster
Chair, Bethany Home Survivors Campaign
Mr Leinster has also enclosed the following letter from David Graham who know lives in Australia and all he wants is some piece of mind before he passes away:
I am writing to seek your help. I am a Bethany Home Survivor and will be 80 next week. I have been trying for many years to get the Irish Government to acknowledge that I was born in Dublin and issue me an Irish Passport or a document granting me Irish Citizenship. I enclose some letters. I have many time written to various government officials and members of the Government. They keep referring me to the Dept of Justice saying it is up to me to prove that David Paul Graham is actually Maurice Oliver Johnson. I have this birth Certificate.
I know I was probably adopted twice and my name changed twice. Only last year I found out I had a brother, regretfully I will probably never meet him due to my age however we talk every week and I got a photo of my mother and my new family.
Can some civil servant just decide to issue me the documents so I can die in Peace as “An Irishman”. Not too much to ask
Your help or advice would be appreciated
Kind regards
David Paul Graham J.P.
In June 2018 there was more names added to the memorial for these children and RTE wrote:
Survivors of the Protestant-run Bethany mother and baby home have added the names of 70 children and a mother to their memorial to Bethany children in Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery.
All the individuals concerned were buried in unmarked graves between 1922 and the late 1950s. The names of 169 more Protestant children, mainly from Church of Ireland institutions have been inscribed on a separate upright memorial stone nearby which was also unveiled this afternoon.
The unveiling took place after a service at the cemetery entitled “For the Little Ones – Remembrance 2018”. The Bethany Home Survivors’ Group ‘98 said research conducted on its behalf has found that the group of 169 children were resident in or under the care of Miss Smyly’s Homes, Miss Carr’s Home, the Church of Ireland Magdalen Asylum and the Irish Church Missions.
It said many of the children were ‘nursed out’ by the institutions and died under the care of foster mothers, who were paid by local authorities.
In 2010 the group first revealed the names of 219 dead Bethany children. The original Bethany memorial stone, bearing 222 names, was unveiled in Mount Jerome in April 2014.
At today’s ceremony a white dove was released. Warwickshire-based Derek Leinster who was born in Bethany in 1941 said this was “to remember the little ones that lost their lives in the Bethany Home”.
The Group said the memorials mark the death of hundreds of children who were under the care of the Protestant evangelical institution which moved from Dublin’s north inner city to Rathgar in the 1930s.
“There is no room on our current memorial for new Bethany Home children”, said Mr Leinster who explained that the group commissioned a new flat stone which is laid at right angles to it at its base.
Mr Leinster added: “In addition to the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian and Methodist churches also supported the Bethany Home and other institutions.
“They sent women and children to them, not only from the Republic but also from Northern Ireland. The Presbyterians and Methodists also need to be held to account.”
He said that for the first time the Bethany stone also recognises the mothers of the home. This follows the group’s discovery of two Bethany Home mothers who died in childbirth. One of the mothers is named on the stone.
“It is understood that she died in childbirth of blood loss, and that, tragically, her child died five weeks afterwards,” Mr Leinster explained.
“I thought it was fitting to have her looking after all of these little ones,” said Leinster.
“I knew there had been mothers who died in the Bethany Home but we had never been able to identify any before now,” he said.
He added: “This sad time will allow us to reflect on all of the Irish children that suffered abuse while in the care of churches and the State.
“It is important that we do this while we can because, as time goes by, there are fewer of us able to attend.” For 20 years, the Bethany Home survivors have campaigned without success for redress payments from the State.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, speaking at the unveiling, criticised successive Governments for failing to compensate survivors of the Bethany mother and baby home and similar Protestant-run institutions.
The Irish Government continue to offer next to little or no support to Mr Leinster and in a letter received 2008 they deny that the exclusion of the Bethany Home is anything to do with religious discrimination and that Protestant institutions were included in the Ryan Commission.
It argues that because the Department of Health & Children could not find any papers in relation to them having a role in the oversight of these homes then Bethany was not liable to be included in the commission. However Mr Leinster argues and has shown evidence that the Irish State was inexplicably involved with the Bethany Homes as were a variety of religious institutions that continue to bury their head in the sand such as the Church of Ireland that is part of the Anglican Communion.
Both Leo Varadkar as Prime Minister of Ireland and Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury proclaim to be progressive, modern and outward looking. The Archbishop of Cnaterbury continues to lobby for fair treatment of refugees whilst Varadkar is also of the same opinion. The question here is that with only a handful of survivors of Bethany left and all they seek is the truth, apologies and fairness so why are they are burying their head in the sands?
It is a damning indictment in that even the leader of Sinn Fein has said that it was wrong and has criticised the Irish Government for not doing what is right.
Mr Leinster is a committed campaigner and you can read more about him, The Bethany Care Fund and also his books and further writings on his website:
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