Irish Affairs

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Nothing from the nuns, or the Catholic church, has really come close to expressing true remorse. A “definitive” apology in 2021 from Eamon Martin, Ireland’s most senior church figure, was worded thus: “I accept that the church was clearly part of that culture in which people were frequently stigmatised, judged and rejected. For that, and for the longlasting hurt and emotional distress that has resulted, I unreservedly apologise.”

Yet the church wasn’t just part of that culture. It was the culture, saturating every aspect of life in Ireland, shaping public attitudes towards women and their babies, encouraging their shaming and ostracising. Some campaigners have called for church assets to be seized unless the institution contributes to a state-run redress scheme.

Without a true acknowledgment of the pain that has been caused, how do you begin to move on from something so traumatic? Yes, there have been memorial events and gardens – in Dublin, a journey stone monument was unveiled in 2022, and the National Centre for Research and Remembrance is to hold records related to the institutional trauma, with a museum and exhibition space. Culturally, the scandal has been intelligently and sensitively revisited, from the novella and film Small Things Like These to the BBC drama The Woman in the Wall, and Sinéad O’Connor’s previously unreleased The Magdalene Song. Liam Neeson is collaborating with Catherine Corless – the amateur historian who devoted many hours to painstaking research into St Mary’s, and who battled on heroically despite widespread indifference when she tried to make the mass grave public – on a film, The Lost Children of Tuam.

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