'It’s a life sentence': Stories from the women of Bessborough mother and baby institution

Journalist Deirdre Finnerty knew little of Bessborough House until she first heard the harrowing story of one Irish woman in London

Mother and baby home survivor Terri Harrison who was forced back to Ireland from Britain in 1973 as part of a repatriation scheme for pregnant Irish women. Picture: Fran Veale

A couple of years ago, I had tea in a west London flat with a woman who didn’t want me to use her real name. The woman—let’s call her ‘Bridget’–— feared her friends and neighbours finding out about what she was about to tell me, a journalist. Although I assured her I would honour her wishes, I sensed she was nervous, her shoulders curling towards her ears as she opened the door.

Bridget was in her 70s, smartly dressed with wavy, mid-blonde hair cut in a long bob. Her wide-set blue eyes were accentuated with green eyeshadow and despite over six decades in London, her accent hadn’t lost the traces of the Tipperary village in which she had grown up.