Qualla: Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. Four thousand nine hundred and seventy-two women were sent here. Four thousand five hundred and fifty-nine children were born here. The numbers are exact because the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary kept careful records, and because in the past decade an Irish government Commission of Investigation has gone through those records, line by line, to give some account of what happened inside the Kinturk Demesne at Castlepollard between 1935 and 1971. The buildings still stand. The walled garden is overgrown. The 1938 hospital, designed by the architect Thomas J. Cullen and largely paid for by the Irish Hospital Sweepstakes, sits empty. The story of what these walls held is one Ireland has only recently begun to tell.

Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: What the Place Was Built For

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mccloughlin, CC BY-SA 4.0. The home opened in 1935 in Kinturk Manor House, a Georgian residence built around 1760 by the 'Old English' Pollard family, with wings added in 1821. Its original capacity was modest: 37 women and 20 children. By 1937 there were 56 women and 48 children. By 1941 the population ha...

Image: Mccloughlin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: Who the Women Were

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah777 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. They came from Westmeath, Meath, Cavan, Offaly — sometimes further. They were usually young, almost always poor. Some had been sent by their families. Some had been sent by their parish priests. Some had been delivered by the Gardaí, who had picked them up on the road and had now...

Image: Sarah777 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: The Children

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mccloughlin, CC BY-SA 4.0. Four thousand five hundred and fifty-nine babies were born at Castlepollard between 1935 and 1971. Hundreds of them died there. Infant mortality at the home was significantly above the national average for years at a stretch — partly through overcrowding, partly through inadequat...

Image: Mccloughlin | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: How the Truth Came Out

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Drumgowna, CC BY-SA 4.0. For most of the twentieth century, Ireland did not discuss the Mother and Baby Homes. The women who passed through them were warned not to speak of it; many spent the rest of their lives in silence, including from their own later families. The breakthrough came in 2014, when the ...

Image: Drumgowna | CC BY-SA 4.0

Castlepollard Mother & Baby Home: What Remains at Kinturk

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mullingar, CC BY 2.5. The Health Service Executive owns the property now. The 1938 hospital and the older Kinturk Manor House sit empty. A smaller building on the site operates as a public medical centre, and bungalows on the grounds serve as residences for people with disabilities. The walled garden ...

Image: Mullingar | CC BY 2.5