Bessborough. Surely by now we all know what happened there. Between 1922 and 1998, at least 9,768 women and 8,938 children passed through the mother and baby home, located in an 18th century house and outbuildings near Cork city. The congregation that ran this institution and two others in Ireland was the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. The women were pregnant outside marriage and gave birth to their children there.

Most of the children were adopted, many against the wishes of their mothers, who had to promise never to contact them in the future. In the past 30 years, their stories have emerged, disclosing a harsh, cruel system that treated both mothers and babies with, at best, indifference and, at worst contempt.

Please don’t stop reading. It’s just that a lot of people seem to have tired of this subject, and feel it’s time to “move on”.

There have been three major government reports on industrial schools, Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes. There have been excellent TV and radio documentaries. Many brave survivors have revealed what happened to them: physical, sexual and emotional abuse and cruelty, and serious, sometimes life-threatening neglect.

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But we have never seen protests to match the recent ones about fuel prices and earlier ones about water charges about the torture (as defined by a UN rapporteur in the case of Magdalene laundries), enforced family separation, compulsory........

© The Irish Times