Westbank Orphanage (sometimes called Westbank Protestant Orphanage or Westbank Children's Home) was a privately run Protestant orphanage in

Greystones Greystones () is a coastal town and seaside resort in County Wicklow, Ireland. It lies on Ireland's east coast, south of Bray, County Wicklow, Bray and south of Dublin city centre and has a population of 18,140 (2016). The town is bordered ...

County Wicklow County Wicklow ( ; ga, Contae Chill Mhantáin ) is a county in Ireland. The last of the traditional 32 counties, having been formed as late as 1606, it is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is bordered by t ...

, Ireland, which closed in the 1990s. Westbank was originally founded as the ''Protestant Home for Orphan & Destitute Girls''. It moved from Harold's Cross in Dublin to Wicklow in the late 1940s, and began to accept boys as well as girls. The regime at the orphanage was Protestant evangelical Christian and was run by Miss Adeline Mathers, a born-again Christian. While it attempted to find homes for some children with Protestant families, many were retained as helpers and as a means of raising funds. Some children were sent illegally to families in Northern Ireland, England, and Scotland. The orphanage became controversial when allegations of abuses surfaced. In the 1960s children from another related and equally controversial Protestant home, the

Bethany Home Bethany Home (sometimes called Bethany House or Bethany Mother and Child Home) was a residential home in Dublin, Ireland, mainly for women of the Protestant faith, who were convicted of petty theft, prostitution, infanticide, as well as women who ...

, were transferred to Westbank. The orphanage was designated by the Church of Ireland and the state as place to send Protestant orphans. Westbank children were sent to worship in Bray Gospel Hall. The orphanage was run by the Westbank Greystones Protestant Orphanage Charity, associated with Bray Gospel Hall. It was registered as a charity and availed of tax benefits as a result. Former residents of the Westbank Orphanage, Greystones and Ovoca House in Wicklow, demanded inclusion in the Irish Government's 2002 redress scheme, and an apology. After closure in the late 1990s, records were transferred to the

PACT (Protestant Adoption Society) {{Notability, org, date=May 2023 PACT is an Irish adoption organisation founded in 1952, formerly called the Protestant Adoption Society. Its main office, ''Arabella House'' in Rathfarnham, is named after the philanthropist Lady Arabella Denny. PA ...

. After broadcast of abuse allegations in the RTE documentary, 'Aunties Family Secrets' (5 June 2011), Westbank administrators demanded return of the records.

Protestant Home for Orphan & Destitute Girls, Harolds Cross, Dublin

The Protestant Home for Orphan & Destitute Girls in

Harolds Cross Harold's Cross () is an affluent urban village and inner suburb on the south side of Dublin, Ireland in the postal district D6W. The River Poddle runs through it, though largely in an underground culvert, and it holds a major cemetery, Mount ...

, Dublin, was established around 1860 in No. 201 Harolds Cross, in the house where the Quaker, the famous slavery abolitionist Richard Allen was born, in the home of his parents, a large red brick building dating from the mid-18th century. The Orphanage moved to Wicklow in the 1940s.An Important House in Harolds Cross
Rev. Patrick Comerford Blog, www.patrickcomerford.com.

References

Church of Ireland mother and baby homes Greystones 1990s disestablishments in Ireland History of County Wicklow {{Ireland-hist-stub

Protestant Home for Orphan & Destitute Girls, Harolds Cross, Dublin

See also

References