Elaine Loughlin: Fear of Church and State forced families to abandon their own

Mother and baby homes were supposed to provide refuge but the women, some of whom were victims of rape, were treated like dangerous wild animals

One of the cards on the teddy bears laid at the gates of Bessborough during the Bessborough Mother and Baby Support Group memorial service in Cork. Picture: Provision

What sort of brutally oppressive and coercive society must exist for a mother to believe the only option she has is to shun her own daughter?

The personal accounts of mother and baby home survivors who slept in crowded dormitories, who scrubbed flights of stairs while heavily pregnant, and who were taunted while giving birth makes for harrowing reading.