A mothers loves a blessing

 

Rosaleen McCaughey thought she would never know anything more about her mother other than her name and that she died during childbirth. That was until Rosaleen's daughter, Mary Taylor, decided to try to put her mother's mind at rest and find the missing pieces of the story. The London woman's quest will bring her to Bully's Acre graveyard later this month where she will pay tribute to her deceased relative...

 

 

“It’s really to get a picture of it all for my mum and in a way, bring closure to all those unanswered questions that have been hanging around all these years,” the determined daughter of an orphaned Cavan woman told The Anglo-Celt this week.

 

Having successfully traced the burial site of her grandmother to Bully’s Acre, the former public cemetery near St Felim’s Hospital, Mary Taylor from Eltham in London will remember her deceased relative later this month and hopes her story can inspire others in tracing their missing loved ones.

 

“My mum [Rosaleen] had always talked about her mum, Annie Eaves. We called her ‘Eaves’ because that was her maiden name. She never really knew hers. Rosaleen was four when her mum died and when we had time to sit down and talk about her life, she’d tell us all she knew was Annie died during childbirth. She’d say to me, ‘Mary, I wouldn’t even know where she was buried’,” Mary explains.

 

It was following one such table-side chat with Rosaleen years later that mother-of-three Mary vowed to put the missing pieces together.

 

 

 

Hard life

 

“She’s a lovely lady, and she’s had a hard life, my mum. I’m a mum myself, and I’ve three lovely girls. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to know my mum, or my daughters not to know me.”

 

Aware only of her mother’s connection locally and to St Joseph’s Orphanage where Rosaleen McCaughey (nee Blessing) and her sister Christine Nolan went to live after their mother, Annie, died in May last year, Mary returned to Cavan, a county she visited once before as a young girl on holiday, with little other significance attached.

 

“I was 17 at the time when I first came to Cavan. It was my first holiday abroad. I went to see family and stayed with Margaret Brady in Bawnboy, who I stayed with last year, too. But at that stage I hadn’t a clue my mum was from just down the road, or that that’s where my nan was buried. I was 17, very young and very naïve.”

 

 

 

Tracing the past

 

From the time though Mary admits she began taking an interest in her family heritage, she has been able to glean further pieces of information from Rosaleen about her past.

 

“She always spoke about Belturbet, St Mary’s Terrace. She doesn’t remember a whole lot from back in those days. Being so young, only about four at the time, she’s 76 now and a lot of it is in snippets. All she remembers vividly was a nun coming and taking her and bringing her by the hand to see her mum in the coffin. She can’t even remember her mum’s face, but does still see is a baby lying there in the foot of the coffin.”

 

Annie Blessing (nee Eaves) died in 1944, age 37. Rosaleen, one of five siblings along with her sister Christine, were subsequently placed into the care of the Order of the Poor Clare nuns at St Joseph’s, while their three brothers were sent to live and work with relatives.

 

“When I went over there last year with my husband Ricky I went with more of a reason. I wanted to find out information, for mum and for myself,” says Mary. But the trip was made all the more difficult by the fact that one of her uncles, all of whom have since passed away, died the week just before Mary’s arrival.

 

“He use to say to mum, ‘Oh I know where our mother is buried’, but we’re not sure he ever went there.

 

“She has never been back to the grave. She wouldn’t have known where it was either. So, when I was over last year we went to the Cathedral (of Saint Patrick and Saint Felim) seeing if we could find any records.

 

“[Rosaleen] use to say she thought her mum was buried up behind all those girls who died in the orphanage fire. We went to Cullies when we were over last May and we visited three different graves, and at Cullies we saw the monument to the girls who died. Its just very sad and because it’s so fresh to me.”

 

Having gained little from her visit to Ireland in 2014, Mary started her quest in earnest from back home in South East London. From there she posted a message in the hope of getting a reaction on a social-media dedicated to the remembrance of the 35 children and one adult who perished in the Cavan orphanage fire on the night of February 23, 1943.

 

“I’d only been using the internet about two years at that stage and only on my phone, too. It was coming up to the time of the memorial and I joined a couple of sites in the hope of finding out more.”

 

 

 

Networking

 

It was here that local woman and then Chairperson of the Cavan Women’s Network Martina Keogan got in touch.

 

“That’s how it started,” says Martina, who took Mary’s story, a person she had never met, to heart.

 

“Mary contacted me explaining how she’d been over the previous year, but had got nowhere. I just thought that it was within the remit of our organisation, to do something to help and remember the mothers and babies.”

 

Contacting Fr Ultan McGoohan at the Cathedral, Martina found where Annie had died and at the mention of St Felim’s Hospital, was able to trace Mary’s grandmothers’ burial place to the consecrated ground on the hill slope north-west of the former hospital site, known as Bully’s Acre.

 

“We were even able to get the priest at the time who officiated over the funeral. I think the last burial at Bully’s was 1962,” she tells The Celt.

 

After making that crucial breakthrough, Martina contacted the HSE, who manage the State-owned ground and following a Freedom of Information application, months of waiting and numerous phonecalls to various departments, they managed to source the whereabouts of Annie’s medical records.

 

“After St Felim’s closed they moved all the files to a big warehouse in Monaghan some place.

 

“They reckon there are up to 10,000 people buried at Bully’s Acre. I went up there myself to see what I could. The entrance to the site is still there. The gates are gone and the walls are coming down in places. It’s very overgrown in places. You can see it hasn’t been maintained properly over the years... to think people are actually buried there.

 

 

 

A crying shame

 

“There really should be something done about there. It’s terribly disrespectful and it’s a shame, in this day and age, that it’s being let go that way. There is bound to be more people out there with stories like Mary’s, who might now come forward and say ‘I don’t have to be ashamed of my past’ and realise they can get hold of this information,” says Martina.

 

With the new information at hand, Mary is now planning a return to Cavan later this month, April 30, when she will meet Martina, and they will attend the Bully’s Acre cemetery together, where Fr McGoohan has arranged to conduct a blessing on behalf of the late Annie Eaves.

 

Mary intends to lay flowers at Bully’s Acre and also at the convent in Cavan Town, where Annie and sister Christine were brought up.

 

“Martina and the others have been amazing. I’ve told my mum we found the grave site. I’ve got collywobbles just thinking about it, I’m so excited. But at the same time its going to be very emotional,” says Mary.

 

Daughter hopes story inspires others