Clodagh Finn: Protect and release our archived personal histories

New legislation makes it a criminal offence to destroy, alter or remove records of survivors of institutional abuse. It also focuses on the importance of such documents — and the need to preserve them

The former Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. A new bill will make it a criminal offence to destroy, alter or remove records of survivors of institutional abuse. The bill covers Magdalene Laundries, mother and baby and county home institutions. Picture: Laura Hutton

It is difficult to describe the depth of emotion that washes over you when you discover the details of your own entry into the world more than half a century after the event.

I had the privilege of witnessing it again this summer — it happens often in the world of an adopted person — when a friend took delivery of a sheaf of documents revealing things that she did not know.