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Mother of baby who died shortly after birth at Bessborough brings action over inquest refusal
A woman whose son died shortly after his birth at Bessborough mother and baby home has brought High Court proceedings over a coroner's refusal to hold an inquest into the infant's death.
Madeleine Bridget Marvier was 17 years old when she was admitted to the home in Blackrock, Cork City, in August 1960. About two months later, she gave birth to her son, William Gerard Walsh.
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In December 1960, at 37 days old, William died at St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork, according to Ms Marvier's court documents.
Ms Marvier's case argues an inquest should be held into the infant's death, in circumstances where coroners are obliged to hold inquiries into deaths that are unnatural, suspicious or unexplained.
Ciaran Craven SC, appearing with barrister Cillian Bracken for Ms Marvier and her daughter Carmel Cantwell, was on Monday permitted by Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty to bring the case, seeking to quash the Cork South Coroner's recent decision not to hold an inquest into William's death.
In a death certificate, obtained by Ms Marvier in 1999, the infant's cause of death was stated as renal abscess septicaemia, sepsis caused by an abscess in the kidney.
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Ms Marvier was previously unaware as to the cause attributed to her son's death.
In 2019, after obtaining documents from Tulsa, Ms Marvier learned for the first time that William had been buried at Carr's Hill Cemetery in Cork, within the jurisdiction of the Cork South Coroner.
In October 2023, Ms Marvier wrote to the Cork South Coroner asking that an inquest be held into the death of her son, on the grounds that his death was violent or unnatural, or was unexpected and from unknown causes, or was in suspicious circumstances.
Included in her request was a report compiled by Dr Michael Munro, a consultant neonatologist, who opined that the death certificate's stated cause of death was speculative and conjectural.
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In January this year, the coroner wrote to Ms Marvier refusing the request to hold an inquest. The coroner stated William did not die in a violent or unnatural manner, and on the balance of probabilities, did not die unexpectedly or from unknown causes, Ms Marvier's court papers say.
Ms Marvier is challenging the coroner's refusal, claiming that a conclusion that the infant's death is beyond doubt 'cannot reasonably be drawn or inferred' and is 'without basis' in the evidence she has put before the coroner.
Ms Marvier's case notes the coroner's purported assumption that in the absence of any record of a postmortem examination of the infant, there was no doubt around the cause of death of the infant, and therefore, there is no sufficient evidence available now to cast doubt on the death certificate's cause of death.
Ms Marvier claims that the coroner makes this assumption while at the same time acknowledging that medical records pertaining to the infant's care at St Finbarr's are now unavailable, and it is not known what medical skills were employed in establishing William's cause of death.
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Ms Marvier's case also claims the coroner did not have regard for his obligations, under the Constitution and European Convention on Human Rights, to investigate suspicious or unexplained deaths that occur in State custody or detention.
The case returns in October.
Bessborough mother and baby home was operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, an order of nuns, between 1922 and 1998.
In 2021, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes concluded that 923 babies associated with Bessborough died during that time, but burial records for only 64 of them could be found.
