At least 17 children died at Galway industrial school

One dates from as far back as 1893, when a girl died following what appears to have been a tragic accident after falling from a bannister in the industrial school

Published 13th Aug 2026, 10:10 BST The former convent chapel which today forms the Church Gallery at Ballinasloe Library | Iconic One dates from as far back as 1893, when a girl died following what appears to have been a tragic accident after falling from a bannister in the industrial school Sign up to our Connacht Tribune Today daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know you can manage your profile, and explore all of the available newsletters from Connacht Tribune within your account.

NEW research into St Joseph’s Industrial School in Ballinasloe has identified at least 17 children recorded as having died there, with corresponding local burial records so far located for only two.

The research also examines the movement of children through St Joseph’s from Mother and Baby Homes and subsequent adoptions to the United States .

MSc researcher Abbie McGowan has been piecing together the history of St Joseph’s Reformatory and Industrial School through archival research, contemporary records and oral history interviews with people who lived there.

Her findings will feature in Inniu agus Inné , a five-part podcast series launching at Ballinasloe Library this Saturday, August 15, at 11.30am.

The death of a 15-year-old girl at St Joseph’s prompted her to begin searching civil records, eventually leading her to the names of other girls who had died while committed to the institution.

“I came across a death when I was looking for something else entirely,” Abbie described.

“It hadn't occurred to me. I uncovered the deaths of the children, and I don't have corresponding burial records.”

Abbie gained access to the Sisters of Mercy archive and the school’s register, which recorded the children committed to St Joseph’s.

The records contain details including height, hair colour, complexion and build, as well as information about next of kin.

“The register lists the names of children court ordered to that institution,” she explained.

“In the case of those particular children, it said they had died. There was no detail of where they were buried. The remarks listed them as ‘having passed away while committed’. There is no burial record for them in the cemetery in Ballinasloe.”

Abbie is careful not to draw conclusions about what happened to the remains of the other children from the absence of those records.

“Just because I can’t find them in a particular cemetery – is it possible that their next of kin came to claim them?” she asked.

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“I am hoping, by putting the names out there, to find clarification on where they are buried,” she said.

The deaths she identified occurred from a range of causes, including measles and tuberculosis.

One dates from 1893, when a girl died following what appears to have been a tragic accident after falling from a bannister in the industrial school.

By then, St Joseph’s had already been operating in Ballinasloe for almost three decades.

St Joseph’s closed as a reformatory on June 30, 1884 and reopened eight days later, on July 8, as a certified industrial school, initially accommodating up to 60 Roman Catholic girls from across Ireland.

Abbie McGowan | Iconic The institution formed part of the Sisters of Mercy complex beside the Fairgreen on Society Street, on and around the site occupied today by Ballinasloe Library.

The L-shaped building, which housed residents of the industrial school, has since been demolished.

The former convent chapel survives and today forms the Church Gallery at Ballinasloe Library, where exhibitions, talks, workshops and musical performances are now held.

It was the transformation of this site that originally drew Abbie into the research.

“I started trying to tell the story of the lifecycle of that building – from religious institutionalisation to lovely, cuddly library,” said Abbie.

“I wanted to find out how it is perceived today in the community in Ballinasloe.”

Her research has challenged one deeply embedded part of local memory.

For generations, St Joseph’s was commonly referred to in Ballinasloe as “the orphanage”.

But the records show many of the children who lived there were not orphans.

“There was this perception that everyone in Ballinasloe referred to that industrial school as an orphanage,” she said, “but they had parents; they had families.

Records examined by Abbie indicate that only a relatively small number of the children were recorded as having lost both parents.

Much of what is known about the earlier years of St Joseph’s comes from official inspectors’ reports.

From around 1899, the historical record becomes thinner, with inspectors no longer providing the same detailed reports on individual schools.

It is that gap between the official record and the lived experience of those inside St Joseph’s that Abbie has been attempting to fill.

With the school having closed in 1968, the opportunity to capture those memories is narrowing.

“There were still people who were there in the ’50s and ’60s,” she said.

“I put a call out to see would those people be happy to be recorded and plenty of people came forward. A lot of them would be in their late 60s and early 70s.”

Some entered St Joseph’s when they were babies. Two were around nine or ten months old when they were committed and remained there until approximately five and seven years of age respectively. Their earliest childhood memories are of the institution.

What Abbie heard from them also challenged her own assumptions about what she would find.

“Two of the survivors have very positive memories,” she said.

“Their biggest trauma was being removed from there. It’s not a story you can tell in black and white. I had a very dim view of organised religion anyway. I was expecting nothing good to come out.”

Instead, she encountered people who remembered being “minded, cared for” and retained a positive perception of their time there.

Best business advice Supermac’s owner Pat McDonagh ever received was only four words Popular Galway hairdressers closing after 20 years thanks 'heartbeat of business' customers “It was very interesting that way. I wanted to tell the whole story of the building and the people in it.”

She has also encountered what she described as a lingering reluctance to talk openly about having lived in an industrial school.

“There is this sense that it is something we shouldn’t be talking about,” she said.

“You would be amazed at the attitude some people still have. There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Another unexpected strand of the project began when Abbie was contacted by people who had spent periods at St Joseph’s as babies but whose records have proved difficult to trace.

Three accounts in particular have raised questions for her about connections between St Joseph’s and the wider network of institutions through which children were moved during the 20th century.

“I don’t know if I will ever be able to get any more information. It will rely on people coming forward.”

One man who contacted her had been born in Bessborough in Cork before being sent to St Joseph’s in Ballinasloe, where he spent around two years. He was subsequently adopted by a family in America.

The information available to him about those first years of his life was extremely limited.

“All he was given was a cryptic photo purporting to be of him as a child, with his name on the back of it and contact details for Sister ‘so-and-so’ in Bessborough,” she explained.

Another person was born in Sean Ross Abbey before being sent to St Joseph’s. Her mother had been told her daughter was going to be adopted in America.

“She has in her possession some cryptic correspondence,” said Abbie.

“She has her own theory as to what these links are and you can hear it in the podcast.”

Connections between Mother and Baby Homes and the wider institutional system are already documented, with children moving into industrial schools and other forms of institutional care.

One of the greatest obstacles, she said, is the gap in records publicly available to researchers.

“There is publicly available information until 1926, then nothing till 1968,” she said. “There is a whole gap.

“That is really frustrating. Without people coming forward to me and telling their stories – we wouldn’t know this information.”

Originally from South London, Abbie has lived in Ballinasloe for 27 years. She was working at Ballinasloe Library when the project began and now works at Aidan Heavey Library in Athlone.

Part of the inspiration came from seeing people arrive at the library seeking information about relatives who had lived in St Joseph’s.

“We used to get people up to the desk saying that their mother or grandmother had spent time there,” she explained.

“They were looking for information and we didn't have it. That was a bit of inspiration to pull it all together.”

Abbie, who has a BA in History and Archaeology from the University of Galway , began the research as part of her MSc at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

More than half a century after St Joseph’s closed, the buildings in which its children lived are largely gone. But the site remains at the centre of community life.

The former chapel is now used for exhibitions, talks, music and workshops, while children come into the library for books, storytime and reading challenges.

For Abbie, there is something powerful in that transformation.

“The story of that building is one of redemption,” she said.

“It was a place where we incarcerated children and it has become one where they have storytime and reading challenges.”

And she does not want the darker discoveries emerging from her research to erase the complexity of people’s experiences there.

“Don’t judge it until you have listened to the whole podcast,” she said. “There is good and bad in it.”