IRELAND
“The World,” Public Radio International (PRI)
January 15, 2021
By Orla Barry
[AUDIO]
The apologies follow a five-year investigation that found an “appalling level of infant mortality” in the institutions.
Francis Timmons was born in 1971, at Madonna House, a state-run home for unwed mothers and their children, in Dublin. Timmons was only 4 when he left the home, but still has painful memories of his time there.
“I remember a very harsh place; I have memories of an awful lot of upset, tears and crying and just generally, not being happy.”
“I remember a very harsh place; I have memories of an awful lot of upset, tears and crying and just generally, not being happy,” he said.
Timmons’ late mother, then a 21-year-old unmarried woman, was kept at a separate institution, St Patrick’s in Dublin. She was rarely allowed to see her son. Being a single mother in the 1970s, Timmons says, was probably one of the biggest crimes in Ireland at the time. And the religious order that ran the homes, he adds, made the women feel humiliated about their pregnancies.
Like many children in the institutions, Timmons was included in two vaccine trials as a toddler, without his mother’s consent. At the age of 4, he was sent to live with a foster family but the abuse continued.
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