Banished

Philomena Lee’s lost son was one of thousands of Irish babies forcibly adopted and sent to America—many of them, as it turns out, to St. Louis.A woman, in hat and pearls and smart checked suit, smiles radiantly at the camera and holds twins in her lap, little girls with fat, rosy cheeks, their heads tucked into white caps.
Behind her, another woman in matching hat and suit smiles down at a tiny blonde girl, whose head is tilted, her expression inscrutable. NEW YORK, Feb. 15­– BUNDLES FROM IRELAND, the caption reads. The women, the paper explains, flew in from St. Louis; they’d come to Idlewild Airport to meet these Irish orphans, who they hoped to adopt. On first leg of their journey, on February 9, 1952, the Dublin Evening Mail reported on the twin’s departure

http://www.stlmag.com/The-Banished/

Long-lost brothers celebrate their first Christmas together after 80 years apart

Two brothers who spent 80 years unaware of each other's existence are celebrating their first Christmas together. Frederick O'Donnell (78) and his brother Jimmy (80) were born in separate mother and baby homes in Dublin in the 1930s.

They met each other for the first time this year. They were united thanks to a Herald story about how Frederick had discovered he had a brother and was now seeking help to track him down. The Finders International company responded, and located Jimmy, who was living in Cheltenham in England.

http://www.herald.ie/news/longlost-brothers-celebrate-their-first-christmas-together-after-80-years-apart-34302409.html

Ireland's Lost Babies

The movie Philomena told the story of Philomena Lee, who was forced by the Catholic Church to give up her son for adoption. It showed her journey with journalist Martin Sixsmith to find her child 50 years later.
The movie won public and critical praise, but it also shone a light on a shocking period of Irish history - a time when the Church wielded enormous political and cultural power, attempting to control even what happened in the bedrooms of Ireland.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/11/10/4123123.htm 

Stormont officials must give evidence over abuse inquiry victims

That excludes older victims, such as young women abused in Magdalene Laundry-type institutions. Stormont officials are to be compelled to give evidence to an Assembly committee on a controversy surrounding victims who fall outside the terms of the on-going Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry.

Members of the committee that scrutinises the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) voted to trigger the exceptional step after a failed year-long quest to obtain information.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/stormont-officials-must-give-evidence-over-abuse-inquiry-victims-34237409.html 

Church Spent Decades Stealing or Coercing Babies from Unwed Mothers

Ever the bastion of mercy and forgiveness for wayward women, Catholic church-run charities around the world stand accused of forcing unwed mothers to give up their babies for adoption — or lying and telling them their babies had died and then giving the babies away, anyway.
Depressingly, Operation Hand The Baby Over, You Hellbound Adultress wasn't a relic of Torquemada-era moralizing; the most recent cases of forced or coerced adoption are said to have occurred in the late 1980's. And punitive tactics used on pregnant women then sound oddly like language used in laws designed to be abortion deterrents today.

http://jezebel.com/5896835/church-spent-decades-stealing-or-coercing-babies-from-unwed-mothers 

Children dying roughly every second day in Irish Mother and Baby home

The Register of Deaths from Bessborough Mother and Baby home reveals that during certain months in the 1940s the death rate among children living in the home amounted to a child dying roughly every second day.

For many years, Bessborough Mother and Baby Home, in Co. Cork, run by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, was an institution where pregnant and unmarried women were referred to before they gave birth as, at the time, having a child outside of marriage was considered a serious sin in Ireland.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Children-dying-roughly-every-second-day-in-Irish-Mother-and-Baby-home.html 

Real-life Philomena presses Pope to open Ireland's forced adoption files

Philomena Lee, whose story inspired the movie 'Philomena,' met yesterday with Pope Francis. She has launched a project to help other Catholic women find their lost children.  Her tragic story has touched hearts around the world after inspiring an Oscar-nominated movie starring Dame Judi Dench.

More than 60 years ago, an unmarried Philomena Lee had her little boy taken from her by the Catholic Church under a policy of forced adoptions at convents and mother-and-baby homes operated by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Yesterday, Mrs. Lee met the man in charge of the institution that caused her such pain and suffering – Pope Francis.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0206/Real-life-Philomena-presses-Pope-to-open-Ireland-s-forced-adoption-files 

Tuam children's bodies: Catholic Church 'has no records'

A Catholic archbishop in the Republic of Ireland has said the church has no records about the burial of nearly 800 children at a mother and baby home. The children, aged between two days and nine years, died between 1925 and 1961.
The remains of some of the children were in a disused concrete tank at the County Galway home. The grave in Tuam was found nearly 40 years ago, but was initially thought to be from the 1850s famine.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27710206 

Geophysical survey at site of Tuam mother and baby home

The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes has confirmed that a geophysical survey is being carried out on the site of the graveyard at the Dublin Road Housing Estate, Tuam, Co. Galway.
The survey will be conducted with the consent of Galway County Council, who are the owners of the site. The survey will involve the use of non-invasive methods.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/1009/733612-mother-and-baby-homes-tuam/ 

Mother and Baby Homes: Revelations put State in uncomfortable position

The reaction of the Government to a shocking 2012 HSE report on Bessborough Mother and Baby Home has been instructive. The revelations contained in the report have clearly put it in an uncomfortable position. Despite the shock displayed once the Tuam babies story went global — it is now clear that the Government had possession of a report showing a higher death rate in Bessborough almost two years earlier.
When the report, compiled as part of the HSE’s examination of the State’s role in the Magdalene Laundries as part of the McAleese inquiry, was made public by the Irish Examiner in June, along with equally disturbing material relating to Tuam Mother and Baby Home, the reaction of Government was to first deny it had ever seen it, then admit that, in fact, two departments had the report before finally labelling the entire study “conjecture”.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/mother-and-baby-homes-revelations-put-state-in-uncomfortable-position-346552.html