Opportunities for closure are slipping away from Mother and Baby home survivors

We owe it to the Mother and Baby home survivors to listen and to support them when the report comes out in January.

Tom Warde at the Mother and Baby home memorial in Tuam. “Everyone looked down on us." Photo: Breeda Murphy

“The right to the truth is both an individual and a collective right. Each victim has the right to know the truth about violations against them, but the truth also has to be told more widely as a safeguard to prevent violations from happening again” - 8th Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon - March 24, 2013.

The search for a truthful narrative to the Mother and Baby Home scandal is one that has, for decades, proved most difficult to emerge – hindered at every opportunity and none. For those to whom it remains personal, as their story, their truth, their right to know what they cannot recall of those early years, the delay has been tortuous. 

And for the families of the lost children, waiting for excavation, exhumation and DNA retrieval and ultimate matching, the injustice of not learning within their lifetime is uppermost on their minds. Opportunities for closure are slipping away.

For survivors of such homes, even before birth, they were marked as ‘children of sin’ - a phrase one of the Tuam classmates Kevin O’Dwyer coined as he recalled on outlining the disparity that existed even in the school setting. Most were too young to comprehend the phrase, let alone recall it. Yet, many survivors testify to that.

Take Tom Warde. Tom was born in the home on June 3, 1942, to his mother Maureen. 

He explained: “Everyone looked down on us, we weren’t in the same class [of people].

Once people heard you were fostered, no one wanted to see you after that.

One of Tom’s earliest memories is of leaving the home in August 1947 when he had just turned five years old. He remembers going out the gate in the ‘green van’. 

He tells me many of his cot-kin survivors recall the green van and little snippets of the journey – accompanied by emotions that are difficult to put into words. Was it freedom? Was it further containment? Whatever it was, it was scary as all they had known was ebbing further away with each turn of the wheel.

His next memory is of life in Woodford, County Galway, as a fostered out child. Tom is grateful for the care he received there where he learnt skills he still practices today, of music – he plays the drums regularly and prior to Covid-19 pandemic impacting, joined other musicians locally to play for residents of nursing homes, for instance. Tom left that home when he was 19.

It is those early years as a young boy that left their mark; more acutely felt upon engaging with people who held positions of power, like priests and teachers. 

They "looked down on us" and reinforced that feeling of being less equal. Policies at that time were focused on the deserving versus the undeserving poor, marked for life because of circumstances outside of their control; being a ‘home baby'. 

Tuam Mother and Baby Home, together with the many scattered throughout the country, are recognised within the ‘architecture of containment’ with high grey walls where many, far too many, perished. Rights and privileges were replaced by cruel, harsh treatment of both mother and by association, her child. 

It was within the confines of the Tuam home that Tom’s mother gave birth to him – and with sadness Tom recalls the 796 lost children who were not so fortunate to get the spin in the green van. 

Instead, they were placed without any ceremony or even a prayer, below ground on the site, part of it enclosed with grey walls and two gates; a site he visits regularly with other survivors to recall those little children. The entire site contains remains, it is thought. 

The photograph below shows Tom on one of those visits. In the background, the Memorial Garden erected and tended to for decades by locals.

Tom Warde at the Mother and Baby home memorial in Tuam where he was born on June 3, 1942, to his mother Maureen. Photo: Breeda Murphy

I asked Tom what he thought of the publication date, revealed to be during the week of 11 January, as advised by the Minister in an email to survivors. Tom thinks it’s past time; delays have impacted people, with hopes often raised only to be dashed again. 

This time, it is real, I tell him. We will have the report – all 3,000 pages, the Minister advises. It’ll take some time to read that, he says. I don’t know how we will read it – in stages, piece by piece.

I wonder if he too is wondering what it will contain, evidence of trafficking which began for Tuam perhaps even within the first year of operation. 

A piece in the Connacht Tribune on December 4, 1926, reports the Matron outlining the “indiscipline by unmarried mothers” - two of them had a row and acted in a disorderly manner. 

On suggesting that they be transferred to the Magdalene Home in Galway only one attendee raised a pertinent question when the secretary said they would be taken there. A Mr Davis asked had they a legal remedy to send them? It appeared they didn’t and the Chairman responded that they try it. 

They would go by ambulance, the Secretary advised. Trafficking. From one institution to another, even between jurisdictions - Sure who would stop them?

Hopefully the report will provide an honest reflection together with the testimonies provided by more than 500 contributors. Their words matter. Those who have found their voice in recent years have only done so out of sheer anxiety to ensure a truthful account emerges. 

We owe it to them to listen, to respond and to support. And we owe it to those who did not make it out to ensure that their names, their short lives are not forgotten. 

There is another reason, as His Excellency Ban Ki Moon reminded us; “The truth also has to be told more widely as a safeguard to prevent violations from happening again”.

We must face the past, warts and all, to learn from it. Hopefully those who suffered most will be central to each step on this journey to expose the truth and we will listen and respond appropriately.

• Breeda Murphy is PRO of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Alliance