Bessborough

‘I read Bessborough in one sitting, veering from fury to devastation within a matter of pages. A vitally important book.’ Louise O’Neill

‘A powerfully important book that demands to be read’ Irish Examiner

For over seventy years, Bessborough House, a grand country mansion on the outskirts of Cork city, operated as one of Ireland’s biggest mother and baby institutions. Women and girls who walked up its stone steps were warned never to reveal their true identities and gave birth to babies they would not be allowed to keep.


In Bessborough: Three Women. Three Decades. Three Stories of Courage, a trio of remarkable women confined there in the 60s, 70s and 80s, tell their truths. Their vivid accounts take us right inside the walls of the secretive institution and give us a deep insight into how their experiences impacted their lives afterwards.
The result is a stark portrait of a system that split families apart — and a moving account of love, loss and reconnection.