IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Jerome Reilly
Published 08/06/2014

“We wouldn’t allow a girl to take her baby to bed with her unless it was at least two months old. Then she is probably fond of it. Before then there might be accidents.” – Reverend Mother of Bon Secours mother-and-baby home in Tuam

THE year was 1955 and the nun was speaking to Dr Halliday Sutherland, a Scottish doctor, author and TB treatment pioneer who visited both the Tuam home run by the French sisters, and the infamous Magdalene Laundry in Galway City as he was researching his book, Irish Journey.

To gain access to the Magdalene Laundry, Dr Sutherland had to accept interrogation by the fearsome Bishop of Galway, Michael John Browne – one of the most senior Catholic clerics and a noted supporter of the notorious sectarian boycott of Protestants in Fethard-on-Sea.

Dr Sutherland’s original 1955 manuscript kept…