Bethany Home

Bethany Home (sometimes called Bethany House or Bethany Mother and Baby Home) was a residential home in Dublin, Ireland mainly for Protestant unmarried mothers and their children, and also for Protestant women convicted of petty theft, prostitution, and infanticide. Most had a Church of Ireland background. The home was run and managed by evangelical Protestants, who, in the main, were Plymouth Brethren, Church of Ireland or Presbyterian. It catered to "fallen women" and operated in Blackhall Place, Dublin (1921–34), and then in Orwell Road, Rathgar (1934–72), until its closure. The home sent some children, some unaccompanied, to Northern Ireland, England, and to the United States.[1]

History

Bethany Home was founded in Blackhall Place in Dublin in 1921, and moved in 1934 to Orwell Road, Rathgar, where it was based until it was closed in 1972.[2] On opening the home in May 1922 the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, declared Bethany "a door of hope for fallen women". The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral presided over the first evening meeting setting up the Home. A Church of Ireland prison mission for women prisoners was incorporated into Bethany Home[3]

Following the passage of the Registration of Maternity Homes Act, 1934, after at first attempting to exempt itself from its provisions, Bethany Home became subject to inspection by the Department of Local Government and Public Health.[4][5]

In a letter dated 9 April 1945 from the Church of Ireland's then Archbishop of Dublin, Arthur William Barton, to Gerald Boland, then Minister for Justice, he described the home as "a suitable place for Protestant girls on remand".[6] Bethany Home was already a place recognised by the courts as a place of detention.[7]

Critical reports on nursed out Bethany children were compiled in January 1939 by inspectors in the Department of Local Government and Public Health. In August 1939, newspapers reported critical discussion at the Rathdown Board of Guardians on hospitalised Bethany children. The government's Deputy Chief Medical Adviser, Winslow Sterling Berry, visited the home on three occasions in 1939, once in February and twice in October. In February, Sterling Berry reversed an inspection report on a child said to have been in a "dying condition". The Report of the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Inquiry stated that the child died shortly afterwards. Sterling Berry rationalised mortality and illness in Bethany Home in October 1939 with, "it is well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children are delicate and marasmic from their birth." Sterling Berry observed that the home's most objectionable feature, that caused public controversy, was admittance of Roman Catholics into a proselytising institution. He successfully pressured Bethany Home's managing committee into ceasing the admission of Roman Catholics. The Residential Secretary, Hettie Walker, claimed in 1940 that the measure was only agreed to because of a threat of refusal of funding under new legislation.The high mortality rate that has occasioned controversy abated in 1940, but thereafter increased again up to 1944. Public scrutiny was not repeated.[8]

The superintendent of the Church of Ireland's Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics, the Revd T.C. Hammond, was a member of the home's managing committee until he departed for Australia in 1935.[9] In the 1950s Bethany Home facilitated the adoption of children by Protestant families in the United States, while some sent to Barnardo's in England may have been sent on to Australia.[10]

During the 1960s children were transferred from the Bethany Home to the Protestant evangelical Westbank Orphanage in Greystones (which closed in 1998), from which few children were adopted.[11][12]

Children from the Bethany Home were also sent to the Irish Church Mission managed, Boley Home, in Monkstown, Co. Dublin.[13]

Bethany Home closed in 1972. In 1974, its assets were distributed to two other Church of Ireland run institutions, 85% to the Church of Ireland, Magdalen Home (founded by Lady Arabella Denny) on Leeson Street and 15% to Miss Carr's Home, North Circular Road, Dublin.[14] The records of the Bethany Home are held by PACT (the Protestant adoption service), along with records of other Church of Ireland social services.[15]

Mount Jerome Graves

222 children died in Bethany Home between 1922–49 and 219 were buried in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Harold's Cross, Dublin.[16] In 2010, a memorial meeting was held in the cemetery to remember them, in attendance were some former residents and relatives of residents along with public figures such as independent Senator David Norris, Joe Costello, TD, and Labour Equality spokeswoman, Kathleen Lynch.[17]

Bethany Survivors Group

The Bethany Home Survivors Group campaigns for redress on behalf former residents. The group has called on the Church of Ireland to publicly support this demand and to acknowledge its role in the home. The group called on the Irish government and on the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, to permit Bethany Home to be included in the state redress scheme,[18] The group's call to be added to the State redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse received political support.[19][20] In May 2011 the survivors group met with the Church of Ireland's Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Michael Jackson, as part of their campaign.[21]

Former Bethany residents called for inclusion in an inquiry headed by Senator Martin McAleese, into the state's role in the Magdalene Laundries, as similarities were drawn between both institutions and the needs of survivors. Irish Education Minister Ruairi Quinn, subsequently announced in June 2011 a refusal to include Bethany Home in the McAleese inquiry.[22] Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) then opposed Quinn's announcement and supported the call for the inclusion of the Bethany Home in the McAleese Inquiry.[23]

On 16 September 2019, James Fenning[24] and Paul Graham,[25] were featured on BBC Newsline, about their fight for redress from the Irish Government.

Bethany born notables
  • Derek Leinster, writer (Hannah's Shame, 2005; Destiny Unknown, 2008), chairperson, Bethany Survivor Group.[26]
  • Patrick Anderson-McQuoid, artist who worked with the Irish Ballet Company in Cork City before founding and serving as artistic director of the Triskel Arts in that city; currently resident in County Leitrim.[27]
  • Tom McClean, former British paratrooper, SAS/Parachute Regiment, who planted the Union Jack on Rockall Island in 1985.[28] He had been sent to an English orphanage at the age of 3. He authored Rough Passage (1983).[29][30]

See also

References
  1. Niall Meehan, 'Church and State and the Bethany Home', article and supplement to History Ireland, Vol 18, No 5, September-October 2010.
  2. Meehan, Niall. Presentation on Bethany Home Westbank Orphanage for Ministers, MLAs, Belfast, 22 July 2013
  3. Justice needed for the survivors of and victims of Bethany House abuse by Victoria White, Irish Examiner, Thursday, 3 January 2013.
  4. REGISTRATION OF MATERNITY HOMES ACT, 1934 Irish Statute Book.
  5. Niall Meehan, 'Church and State and the Bethany Home', article and supplement to History Ireland, Vol 18, No 5, September-October 2010.
  6. "Bethany Home Church of Ireland link claimed", BBC, 8 October 2010.
  7. "The Irish State & the Bethany Home" by Niall Meehan, submission to Ruairi Quinn, Minister for Education, Leinster House, 24 May 2011, by delegation consisting of Derek Leinster, Noleen Belton, Patrick Anderson McQuoid, Niall Meehan, and Joe Costello TD
  8. The Irish State & the Bethany Home by Niall Meehan, submission to Ruairi Quinn, Minister for Education, Leinster House, 24 May 2011, by delegation consisting of Derek Leinster, Noleen Belton, Patrick Anderson McQuoid, Niall Meehan, Joe Costello TD
  9. Niall Meehan, 'Church and State and the Bethany Home', article and supplement to History Ireland, Vol 18, No 5, September-October 2010.]
  10. Niall Meehan, 'Church and State and the Bethany Home', article and supplement to History Ireland, Vol 18, No 5, September-October 2010], pp. 4–7
  11. Inquiry into 'exploitation' of orphans, letter by former Bethany, Westbank residents, Derek Leinster, Sydney Herdman, Colm Begley, Helen McCarthy Fitzpatrick, The Irish Times, Thursday, 17 May 2012
  12. Protestant abuse history has been swept under the carpet, by Victoria White, Irish Examiner, Thursday, 5 July 2012
  13. Bethany Home and the Irish Church Missions Letters to the Editor, Church of Ireland Gazette, 3 March 2017.
  14. RUAIRI QUINN wrong to deny redress to Bethany Home survivors – here is the evidence
  15. PACT Records and Archives Archived 20 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  16. Church & State and The Bethany Home, Niall Meehan, supplement to History Ireland, Vol 18, No 5, September–October 2010, The Irish Times, 21 May 2010
  17. "Bethany residents remembered", The Irish Times, Wednesday, 26 May 2010.
  18. "Protestant abuse victims must also be heard, The Irish Times, 1 July 2009". The Irish Times. 7 July 2009.
  19. "Dáil Éireann – Volume 639 – 11 October 2007". Archived from the original on 6 June 2011.
  20. Letter to the new Minister for Education Ruairi Quinn Bethany Survivors Group, 11 March 2011.
  21. "Anglican Archbishop of Dublin meets with former Bethany Home residents" Archived 28 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine Tuesday, 24 May 2011.
  22. "Quinn rejects Bethany survivors' redress call", 22 June 2011.
  23. Press Release: JFM supports Bethany "Survivors in rejecting Quinn's refusal to include Bethany Home survivors in redress scheme", Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), 24 June 2011.
  24. Bethany Home survivors call for state and Church apologies By Ciara Colhoun, BBC News Northern Ireland, 16 September 2019.
  25. Bethany Home Survivor says he'll keep fighting for redress BBC News Northern Ireland, 16 September 2019.
  26. Protestant abuse victims must also be heard
  27. Bethany Home Children’s Graves discovered.
  28. "I claimed Rockall for England when I was Irish!” He observed, "I'm an Irishman, sounding like an Englishman, living in Scotland! My mother, my father, my aunts and my uncles – every single person in my family going back generations is Irish. It's quite a story, with Ireland and England and everything." Irish Times, 12 February 2010
  29. Private Lives: First Person Archived 17 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine by Derek Leinster, The Guardian, ibid.
  30. Gorman, Liam. "One of the best wishes McGowan all the best in Atlantic quest". The Irish Times. Retrieved 3 August 2021.

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