IRELAND
Irish Central
Jane Walsh @irishcentral September 19,2014
The documentary “This World: Ireland’s Lost Babies” unearths further truths about the 40,000 to 60,000 babies who were involuntarily given up for adoption, many to the United States, from Catholic mother and baby homes in Ireland, during the 1950s and 60s.
Presented by Martin Sixsmith the documentary alternates between Ireland and the US to tell the tales of the parents and children who were separated by the Catholic Church. Sixsmith is the journalist behind the tale of Philomena, which was later made in to a movie by Steve Coogan. His latest hour-long documentary examines the appalling treatment of the Irish women who became pregnant outside marriage and also the adopted children, who were farmed out to parents who had little vetting.
These babies were handed over to these unknown families. The children often chosen from a primitive mail order catalog and the Catholic Church often receiving a sizeable donation. They were selling babies by mail order to the people in the US.
A striking personal account from the documentary comes from Mary Monaghan, who was born in a mother and baby home in Ireland and sent to America by the nuns, adopted by a predatory pedophile. Now, aged 64 and living in Massachusetts, Monaghan told Sixsmith how she suffered years of sexual abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder after being adopted by the family of William O’Brien, a violent pedophile. Eventually Monaghan was reunited with her mother Therese, who has since died.
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