IRELAND
The Irish News
Tom Kelly
13 March, 2017
A few years ago my work took in me into contact with a religious order, which operated two orphanages in Northern Ireland.
In preparing for media interviews I questioned two nonagenarian nuns who worked in Derry in the 1940s and 50s. Their superiors had committed to sending young children from their institutions to Australia as part of a UK government policy at that time.
It’s hard to imagine anything worse than the enforced migration of young children, splitting them from their already tenuous links to the communities from which they came.
In explaining, one sister described what Derry was like after the war and in particular she admitted that many of the nuns having entered the convents as teenagers had no experience or training in social work or childcare making them totally unsuited to the role of a carer.
Furthermore she described how in some cases widowed fathers unable to cope emotionally but more likely financially, (as they couldn’t become full time stay at home parents), would abandon an entire family at the door of the convent. TB and diphtheria, which were rife amongst the poor and working class, often became rampant viruses in the confined and overcrowded orphanages. She told of nuns visiting local butchers and bakeries to collect food to supplement the inadequate subsidy provided by the government.
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