The residents' grave at the Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday's Well is the final resting place of approximately 30 women who lived and died at the former Magdalene Laundry between the 1870s and 1970s.
This week, members of the Cork Supernatural Society visited the site and were shocked to find that the headstone marking the burial place was broken.
The visitors to the mass grave described it as "basically impossible to access" for the general public, having to scale a "10-foot barbed wire wall" to get in. They explained: "For many family members of these women, it is basically impossible to access the site, and if you do manage to do it, you will find the grave has been smashed up and used as a drug/drinking den over the years."
The nearby convent itself is set to be transformed into accommodation for 1,000 students, with the planning board granting permission earlier this year for "the partial demolition, conservation, redevelopment and extension of the existing former Good Shepherd Convent buildings."
Cork City Councillor Kieran McCarthy told CorkBeo that he was "sad to keep reading about the need for ladders over barbed wire to access what is a public cemetery" - and that the site should be preserved and maintained when the new apartments are built.
Cllr McCarthy said: "My appeal would be that there would be a strong ruling in the An Coimisiún Pleanála for mechanisms to be created whereby the Good Shepherd cemetery would have public access and that the site would be cleaned up and maintained. It is very sad at present to keep reading about the need for ladders over barbed wire to access what is a public cemetery.
"It is almost a metaphor for how we treat such parts of Ireland’s past, in the most difficult of spaces to access. There is a real need to remember those and to reach out to those who are connected to the Good Shepherd convent."
In August, the Justice for Magdalenes Research group submitted an appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála to request that "the developer [must] carry out repairs and ensure that the Magdalene graveyard is maintained to the highest possible standard." A decision is due in early November.
Cllr McCarthy said: "The current plans for 274 student apartments on the site of the former Magdalene laundry were sanctioned with conditions around commemoration and preservation of the graveyard. However, the sanctioned plans have been appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála, and their decision is due back in the next two weeks.
"What is positive is that the National planning authority has taken sites such as Cork’s Bessboro very seriously in the last two years, in noting the importance of finding out more about where individuals are buried and the commemoration of people."
The Laundry at Sunday's Well operated from 1870 until 1977. In addition to the 30 women buried at the nearby mass grave, the Justice for Magdalenes Research group has recorded the names of 164 more women and girls who died at the laundry and are buried at St Joseph’s Cemetery and Kilcully Cemetery.
The Research group has also described their own difficulty in accessing the site: "Gaining access to the grave was (and still is) an extremely difficult process, involving two steep descents which required ropes, while the entire route was severely overgrown. The only way to view the grave was by climbing on top of a ten-foot wall, which is covered in razor wire, as all gates were locked. Flowers which had been brought to lay at the burial ground had to be thrown onto the grave rather than placed there."
Proposals for housing at the Sunday's Well convent site were previously approved, but development never materialised. In the 1990s, University College Cork had planned to use the former convent and its lands for a new humanities campus before abandoning the proposal.
The entire convent site was added to the city's derelict site register in February 2019. Five significant fires have occurred at the site in recent years, including blazes in 2022 and earlier this year.
Gardaí launched an arson investigation into a major fire which broke out at the site on the night of April 16 this year. Emergency services rushed to the historic convent property shortly before midnight after reports of a widespread fire, as flames and smoke could be seen from across the city as it blazed on late into the night.
The "incident of criminal damage" substantially damaged the building. Two laundry baths came crashing through an upper floor during the blaze, and the old timber flooring was destroyed.