Boston premiere of Irish film explores dark history of Ireland’s ‘Stolen’ babies

Members of the Boston community gathered last Tuesday evening to see the first showing of a documentary film highlighting a dark and painful chapter in Ireland’s history.

Stolen, by acclaimed filmmaker Margot Harkin , shines a stark spotlight on Ireland’s mother and baby institutions. The feature length documentary film contains testimonials from survivors of the institutions and children who were born in the institutions, most of whom were sent out for adoption. In many of these cases, the adopted children were sent to the United States.

Though it is difficult to believe, the horrors that took place have only recently come to light. Much of the discourse around the subject came after a disturbing discovery in Tuam, Co Galway in 2017, where one woman came upon the bodies of 796 bodies, buried in a septic tank on the grounds of a children’s home. A 2021 report, estimated that 9,000 children died in Ireland's mother and baby homes between 1922 and 1998. To date, many of these deaths remain unaccounted for.

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During a live panel following the extremely emotional screening, Harkin was joined by Professor Jim Smith of Boston College’s Irish Studies Department, Sarah Anne Buckley or University of Galway, Máiréad Enright of University of Birmingham, Clair Wills of University of Cambridge, and Patricia Carey, Ireland’s Special Advocate for Survivors of Institutional Abuse and survivor of Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Co Cork , where she was adopted from in 1971.

The panel answered questions from the audience, consisting of BC students, faculty, members of the Boston community, and - as Professor Smith pointed out - people who were directly impacted by the systems examined in the film. Together, they answered questions about Ireland’s church and state overlap, abortion legislation, and generations of Irish women working to break the chains that shackled them to things like Catholic guilt and shame.

“I am living the kind of life that women on both sides of my family generations ago could not have imagined, in terms of the extraordinary freedom that I enjoy,” said Professor Máiréad Enright, who's research is in feminist legal studies and critical legal theory. “But at the same time, anytime I deal with these kinds of issues, there’s still a tiny voice in my head saying, ‘that is a sin, your mammy wouldn’t like that.’”

Enright quoted Joanne Neary, a Sligo woman featured in the documentary, whose birth mother was granted visitation rights to her in her foster home. One weekend, when the social worker came to take her back, her mother refused to put her child back into the system, finally telling them to “f*** off.”

“Joanne is the product of four generations of strong women who were telling the church to f*** off,” Enright said. “And what I find most moving is people my age, who are deliberately raising their children to say, ‘that happened to my mother, and I am confident that nothing like that will happen to me.’ It takes the work of generations to get that niggle out of the system.”

Margo Harkin referenced the generational trauma that is undoubtedly still carried by Irish women, but pointing out, “There is a spirit of defiance too.”

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Given the current conversation around reproductive rights in the United States, the women touched briefly on the topic, referencing Ireland’s monumental jump toward reproductive freedom in 2018, after years of policing and punishing women’s bodies.

“After 12 weeks you have to jump through a range of hoops,” Enright pointed out, explaining that Ireland’s legislation, while revolutionary at the time, is in reality quite restrictive.

The overturning of Roe V Wade , poses a national threat to women, putting many millions in the same position that Irish women found themselves in, as they arrived at abusive institutions that were seemingly set up to ‘help.’

“This will happen again,” Claire Wills said, referencing the atrocities the audience just witnessed - many for the first time. “If you get rid of reproductive rights, you’re going to have to have mother and baby homes.”

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