The unspeakable atrocities of mother and baby homes, which brought mortal embarrassment on the Irish State and the Catholic Church, are challenging to recount. It’s important to narrate the downright maliciousness of these homes, yet delicately, so as to honour the victims without exploiting their ordeals, unlike the BBC’s distressing drama, The Woman in the Wall.
The potent and fearless documentary Stolen, aired on RTÉ One at 9.35pm, resolves this by giving the stage to first-hand witnesses. One participant, Mary Moriarty, remembers a child finding human remains close to her residence in Galway, near a former religious institution. The nuns used to transport infant corpses to this informal burial site located right under her residence.
She recounted, “A neighbour said a boy had a skull on a stick at the back. When I saw it, I recognised it as a real human head, complete with teeth.”
Many more heart-wrenching account followed in the 100-minute documentary by Margo Harkin. Anna Corrigan, on her quest for information about her two infant brothers recorded to have died at an institution, found many details missing. The disturbing description of her older brother, John, as “miserable and emaciated” was found in a report. He died at 16 months in 1947. Her brother William reportedly died when he was seven months old. “But there’s no death certificate,” she notes, “which suggests something criminal.”
The harsh treatment inflicted on children in these homes is difficult to understand. During 1922 to 1998, around 9,000 children and infants died in nun-managed institutions – a rate five times higher than the country’s average infant mortality rate. Alison Lowry, an artist, commented that there was a time when one in 100 citizens was confined in some institution, comparing it to totalitarian “Stalin levels.”
The discovery of a mass burial site near the Tuam mother and baby institution by historian Catherine Corless unveiled a long-buried piece of Ireland’s history. It brought to light the deaths of 796 infants between 1925 and 1961. Journalist Alison O’Reilly states, “It all began with the narrative of the Tuam mother and baby residence.”
As the Tuam scandal threatened to tarnish Ireland’s global standing, the government inaugurated an investigative committee. Meanwhile, those who had suffered stepped forward to share their experiences. Colleen Anderson narrates being sent to the United States for adoption into an abusive household, from which she fled at age 15. Later she found out that she had been born from rape and her mother had been forced to give her away.
Terri Harrison suffered a similar fate after she fell pregnant. She was forcefully returned to Ireland from London, an incident she describes as an abduction. Two nuns and a priest were waiting for her at her aunt’s home upon her arrival in Ireland.
Michael O’Flaherty’s story is equally heart-wrenching. He was separated from his biological parents, denied education and forced into slavery on farms. He recalls, “I don’t understand how I survived… sleeping in a shed.”
While the accounts of these survivors are poignantly articulated, the use of poetry in the narrative to express their suffering was an unnecessary addition.
In a disturbing development, the 2021 government report on these homes failed to include the testimonies of witnesses who chose to share their stories in a non-confrontational scenario. This omission has caused significant confusion as it is unclear if this caveat was adequately conveyed to the witnesses. The government’s assertion, against all evidence, that there was “little to no evidence of enforced adoption” made it seem like another betrayal to the survivors who are still expressly upset four years later. Noelle Brown, who was born in the notorious Bessborough mother and baby facility in Cork, straightforwardly states, “Let’s cease protecting the church; in my eyes, they are essentially criminals.”