Thirty six candles for 36 souls
A commemorative service dedicated to the children who lost their lives during the Cavan Orphanage Fire will take place later today (Thursday), writes Michelle Taite. The event, which starts at 6pm, will mark 80 years to the day since the blaze took the lives of 35 girls and one elderly woman.
An assembly at Market Square will mark the beginning of the service, followed by a procession of 36 lighted candles, carried by children to the convent Courtyard.
The names of each child killed in fire will be said aloud, while a candle is placed to represent each victim.
This will give way to a minute's silence in their memory.
Mary Rooney and Bernie Connelly, nieces of one of the girls who perished in the blaze, will then lay wreaths on the grave of the children.
A short Ecumenical Service will be followed by a reflection shared by local artist Sarah McKenna Dunne who wrote 'Smouldering. Not Smothered', a site specific immersive experience of when fire raged through St Joseph’s Orphanage run by the enclosed order of Sisters of the Poor Clares.
A public inquiry at the time in Cavan, the first to take place outside of Dublin, recorded that the fire broke out in the portion of the convent premises devoted to the Industrial school. It was established that smoke from an electrical fault had been smouldering in the laundry undetected for a few hours until finally around 2am the fire took hold and decimated the building and many of the young lives within it.
The transcripts convey the confusing and conflicting accounts of what occurred on that night with lengthy questioning on the first identification of smoke to the first view of flames. The sense is that the first view of smoke was not taken as seriously as it should have been.
The inquiry recorded that 35 children in all were trapped in St Clare’s Dormitory. “They might have been trapped by their own disinclination to go a particular way or fail to go a particular way. But they were trapped, along with some children from the Sacred Heart Dormitory who went into St Clare’s, the smoke, perhaps, not being so severe there… Nine escaped, some two or three by jumping from the windows of St Clare’s Dormitory into Sullivans’ yard, and the others by being rescued by civilians and the guards who were in Sullivans’ yard with ladders."
The inquiry papers report accounts of attempts to put out the fire at the request of the Sisters before taking action to evacuate inhabitants. The delay of local fire services to respond, 40 minutes after the alarm was raised, and inadequate equipment were also noted. There were reports of ladders breaking and ladders being too short to reach children screaming at windows.
The inquiry found that the lack of sufficient equipment was not the fault of Cavan District Urban Council despite previous requests for a pump. The pumps were made in England and, due to the ongoing war at the time, it had not been possible to obtain one.
The inquiry concluded that despite this combination of inept action, no-one was to blame for the loss of life.
GONE BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
Mary Harrison (15) Dublin
Mary Hughes (15) Killeshandra
Ellen McHugh (15) Blacklion
Kathleen (12) & Frances (9) Kiely, Virginia
Mary (15) & Margaret (10) Lynch, Cavan
Josephine (15) & Mona (11) Cassidy, Belfast
Kathleen Reilly (14) Butlersbridge
Mary (12) & Josphine (10) Carroll, Castlerahan
Mary (16) & Susan (14) McKiernan, Dromard, Belturbet
Rose Wright (11) Ballyjamesduff
Mary & Nora Barrett (12), twins, Dublin
Mary Kelly (10) Ballinagh
Mary Brady (7) Ballinagh
Dorothy Daly (7) Cootehill
Mary Ivers (12) Kilcoole, Wicklow
Philomena Regan (9) Dublin
Harriet (11) & Ellen (8) Payne, Dublin
Teresa White (6) Dublin
Mary Roche (6) Dublin
Ellen Morgan (10) Virginia
Elizabeth Heaphy (4) Swords
Mary O'Hara (7) Kilnaleck
Bernadette Serridge (5) Dublin
Katherine (9) & Margaret (7) Chambers, Keady, Co Armagh
Mary Lowry (17) Drumcrow, Ballinagh
Bridget (17) & Mary (18) Galligan, Drumbrath, Kilnaleck
Mary Smith (80) employed as cook
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