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	&lsquo;Liveline&rsquo; caller says babies taken from girls and sold to highest bidder at Cork facility</p>
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	A woman who was sent to a mother and baby home in Bessborough, Cork, has described how she and other residents were &ldquo;sitting ducks for the people who wanted our babies&rdquo;.</p>
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	Her child died there in 1960 after a short illness. Those running the institution had decided to change her son&rsquo;s name from William to Gerard, one more appealing to a Catholic family, his mother suspected.</p>
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	In a tearful recounting of her story on RT&Eacute;&rsquo;s Liveline programme, the woman named &ldquo;Bridget&rdquo; described the horror of her time at Bessborough and said she wanted to speak for those who had no voice.</p>
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	&ldquo;We knew that our babies would be taken away and given away or sold to the highest bidder. I know my little boy would have gone to America; he was blond and blue eyed,&rdquo; she said.</p>
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	&ldquo;The whole of my life has been a terrible, terrible ordeal because this was a little boy. He could [have] been saved. He was a fighter. He could be a beautiful healthy little boy.&rdquo;</p>
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	Crusade of Rescue</p>
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	Now in her 70s, Bridget had moved to London as a pregnant 16-year-old. When she confessed her &ldquo;sin&rdquo; of pregnancy to a priest, he made arrangements to spirit her back to the State with the assistance of the Crusade of Rescue organisation.</p>
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	Frightened by her situation, the young woman boarded a ship for Cork and ended up at the Bessborough home &ldquo;like thousands of other girls&rdquo;.</p>
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	&ldquo;Straight away you could feel the horror of it. My clothes were taken, everything my handbag, coat, everything personal that belonged to you was taken,&rdquo; she said.</p>
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	She was given shoes and a uniform. She said the idea they could leave at any time was a lie; there were bars on the windows and doors.</p>
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	&ldquo;I will die with the pain,&rdquo; she said of the experience.</p>
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	&ldquo;And to hear people deny that this happened. Well I can assure them, I was there. It happened to me; it happened to my baby. How dare they deny when they haven&rsquo;t been there?&rdquo;</p>
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	Much later, with the encouragement of her daughter, she returned to the home to ask about where her son had been buried.</p>
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	She was shown to the &ldquo;angel&rsquo;s plot&rdquo; and the person showing her tapped on the ground to mark the spot but later admitted she did not know where they were buried.</p>
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	Now with the investigation at Tuam, she said, there was hope women&rsquo;s stories would be believed.</p>
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	Last week an excavation of the site of a former mother and baby home in Co Galway found remains of a &ldquo;significant&rdquo; number of babies and infants.</p>
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	Local research records 796 infants and children as having died in the home run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961.</p>
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	(Published by the Irish Times on the 8th March 2017)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/woman-recalls-pain-of-losing-child-at-bessborough-home-1.3001872">http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/woman-recalls-pain-of-losing-child-at-bessborough-home-1.3001872</a></p>
