My mother was 'trafficked': Daughter's search uncovers family link to Bessborough's missing children

Mary Donovan holds a photo of her late mother Margaret who spent time at Bessborough. Picture Noel Sweeney

    Mary Donovan knew she had a brother born in a Cork mother and baby institution , but it was only six years after her mother’s death before she learned she had twin siblings among the missing children of Bessborough .

“Margaret Mary Donovan, née Finn, was my mother. Everyone said she was the most beautiful woman in Tralee,” says Mary Donovan, sitting in the kitchen of her cosy home in Tipperary. Beside her is a picture of her mother; they have the same vivid green eyes.

“My mom was born on July 27, 1939, and at the age of 16, in July 1955, she was sent from her home in Tralee, and she was committed, through a court order, to be detained in a reformatory school in Limerick.