The State and society colluded to treat vulnerable women as criminals

I HAVE tossed and turned at night since I heard about Tuam. Like many of us, I’ve found it impossible to come to terms with the horrifying, shaming discovery of hundreds of babies in an unmarked grave, robbed of their lives and even, in the end, of their identities.

It seems like an inexplicable moment, a moment when we have plumbed the depths of man’s inhumanity. And then I met a woman in the street. She recognised me, I guess, and stopped to talk to me about Tuam. I think she found me incoherent, because I couldn’t offer any answer as to why and how such a thing could happen.

But she was able to point me towards part of the answer. She introduced herself as Ciara Breathnach, a historian in Trinity College. Later that day she sent me some articles, co-written with Eunan O’Halpin, and I’ll come back to them later. But, she said, if I wanted to know how official Ireland organised these things, I should go to the archives of the Houses of the Oireachtas, and there I’d find the expression of our attitude in official policy.