Historian Catherine Corless, who exposed the Tuam Babies scandal, tells Donal O’Keeffe why she feels Tuam and Bessborough need to be excavated, and highlights Pope Francis’ apparent confusion about Tuam.

For those of us who have been involved in adoption activism over the past two decades, it often feels as though the Government is engaged in a war of attrition against adopted people, writes Claire McGettrick.

Silence, in this country, has been a sort of malignant tumour — a virus you inherit at birth and pass along the family tree, writes Joyce Fegan.

Revelations relating to mother and baby homes have brought Ireland’s “shameful indifference” to the rights of adopted people and natural mothers to the fore.

Adopted people are being stigmatised in the same manner as their mothers were, decades before, with the Government’s proposed new information and tracing legislation.

Philomena Lee has said she is “appalled” by the revelations at Tuam, Co Galway, and said all institutions that dealt with unmarried women need to be examined.

As members of the Government prepare to relax for their annual summer break, for the vast majority of adopted children in Ireland, the luxury of relaxation will never be afforded to them until they know the truth of their existence.

Philomena Lee, whose devotion to finding her adopted son inspired a recent film, has called for a more open adoption system here to allow people access their “genetic entitlement”.

I don’t have enough compassion for infertile couples... I will never quite know how it feels, writes Victoria White

Children’s Minister James Reilly yesterday published the terms of reference for an inquiry called on for many years to no avail.

Tánaiste Joan Burton was named 'Woman of the Year 2014' at a ceremony in Dublin last night, with Philomena Lee and Panti also honoured.

Many adopted people believe that successive governments have refused to offer basic tracing and information rights until most victims of Ireland’s forced and illegal adoptions have died.

Our outdated adoption laws must be changed to give people the right to their identity and treat everyone with the respect that they deserve writes Adoption Rights Alliance, Dr Aisling Parkes and Dr Simone McCaughren

WHEN my wife was a child, she was taken to mass every Sunday. Every Sunday, she noticed a small group of children, in what seemed to be reserved seats to the side of the church. They were always cold, pinched and blue. Dressed in khaki, they would troop in quietly at the start and troop out again, through a side door, at the end.

Irish law should be changed to allow adopted children direct and unrestricted access to their birth parents, according to Philomena Lee, the Irish woman whose life-long battle to find her son has galvanised a worldwide movement for adoption rights.

Welcome to your Friday morning briefing. Let us ensure you’re up to speed on what’s happening and are prepared for the day ahead.

It isn’t every day that you see battle-hardened health professionals overcome with emotion, yet there were tears aplenty yesterday at University College Cork when Philomena Lee told the story of her 50-year search for her son.

A woman whose story of forced adoption inspired an Oscar-nominated film has spoken of how nuns at a mother-and-baby home lied to her son about her.

A Government TD has said women whose children were put up for forced adoption are owed an apology by the State.

Philomena Lee, whose life story inspired the Oscar-nominated film, Philomena, will be one of the main speakers at a two-day adoption conference in UCC on September 4 and 5.

Philomena Lee will be among the speakers at a two-day international conference in UCC next month.

Will Ireland do right by all those it has failed? asks Claire McGettrick.

A major International conference on adoption law and practice will take place in Cork next month.

Nearly a quarter of the babies born to Irish mothers and exported to the US for adoption were born at the Sean Ross Abbey, Co Tipperary, the convent at the centre of the film Philomena.

Two seven-year-old girls have handed ministers a petition signed by 30,000 people demanding a judge lead the inquiry into church-run, state-sanctioned institutions for single mothers.

Babies of unmarried parents were treated as "an inferior sub-species" for decades, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has admitted.

A statutory inquiry is to be set up by the Government into state sanctioned, religious-run institutions used to house pregnant mothers.

Children adopted from a Sacred Heart Sisters’ mother-and-baby home in Cork have called for an independent public inquiry to find out many babies died at the centre and where on the site they are buried.

The Government has bowed to national and international pressure over the scandal of the death of 4,000 babies who were buried in unmarked, unconsecrated and mass graves at homes for unmarried mothers.

I have just watched the film, Philomena — about Philomena Lee’s search for her son — in a Maltese cinema.

The story of Irishwoman Philomena Lee’s separation from her child is the subject of a major film based on the book by journalist Martin Sixsmith, says Arlene Harris

Philomena Lee, Robbie and Claudine Keane, The Strypes and Snow Patrol were some of the guests at the US-Ireland Alliance’s ninth Oscar Wilde party which saw TV host Conan O’Brien and YouTube founder Chad Hurley honoured.

Pope Francis may watch the Oscar-tipped film Philomena, after it was well received by his private secretary at a screening in the Vatican.

Philomena Lee, the inspiration behind the Oscar tipped film Philomena, has had an audience with Pope Francis.

Thousands of Irish women have endured the trauma of forced adoptions, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

Just 1% of an estimated 60,000 adopted people in Ireland have traced their identity through the system the Government plans to introduce on a statutory basis so adopted people and natural parents can find each other.

A campaign aimed at shaming the Irish State into opening an estimated 60,000 adoption files is gathering pace on the back of Oscar-nominated film Philomena.

The government has been urged to change the laws which prevent adopted people from accessing their birth records.

A philanthropic fund to assist adopted people and natural parents to trace their relatives has been set in the wake of Oscar-nominated film Philomena.