Queen’s University Belfast has ardently denied information presented to a Stormont committee by an advocate who claimed that the university used the remains of nearly 2,000 individuals from mother and baby homes and workhouses for research reasons. Queen’s University asserted they received 1,055 donated bodies between 1922 and 1970. Current records show that five of these were from mother and baby homes, with no donations of this sort in the past 50 years. The remaining bodies originated from diverse sources such as workhouses and hospitals.
The university stated that the number mentioned at the Committee for the Executive Office session is significantly inflated. Eunan Duffy of Truth Recovery NI told the committee that Queen’s used the remains of 1,980 adults, children, and infants for study, noting that the fate of the remains and body parts of 1,824 is unknown.
Duffy, a Marianvale mother and baby home-born individual who was separated from his mother and subsequently adopted, demanded an expedited inquiry. Paula Bradshaw, Alliance MLA and the committee’s chairwoman, pointed out that the university was asked to testify at the evidence session, but no representative was available.
On Thursday, Queen’s strongly repudiated several baseless accusations stemming from the committee meeting about its management of a body donation scheme associated with mother and baby homes. It confirmed that the majority of the 1,055 received bodies, which were utilised for anatomy education, were either buried or cremated per the family’s requests.
The university maintains no record of funerals or cremations when families requested the returned bodies. It mentioned that as part of an ongoing commitment to review and compile historical records, current records are undergoing a digitisation project.
The university has confirmed that the process adopted at Queen’s for the receipt, utilisation, and final disposition through burial or incineration of bodies, complied fully with the statutory regulations of the period. Given the delicate nature of the issues, the university plans to maintain engagement with pertinent stakeholders, which will include participation in the forthcoming session of the Executive Office Committee.
The Commission of Investigation of Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland uncovered in 2019 that medical colleges, namely UCD, Trinity, and the Royal College of Surgeons, received over 950 cadavers of children who passed away in Irish mother and baby homes for dissection and anatomical studies, spanning the period 1920 to 1977.
The use of corpses, termed as “unreclaimed deceased residents”, from workhouses and mental institutions was lawfully permitted for research in medical schools under the Anatomy Act of 1832. In Ireland and the UK, this was a “customary process” until the mid-1960s.
In Northern Ireland, initial efforts are in pipeline for an autonomous inquiry into the working of mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries, managed by Catholic and Protestant churches. This follows the revelation by Queen’s and Ulster University research that approximately 13,500 women were admitted to these establishments from 1922 to 1990.