‘Children like me were seen as a problem to be solved’
Belfast man given up at birth in 1960s says he was ‘lucky’ to leave nuns home
WEST Belfast man Tim Brannigan has said he was “full of emotions” following the publication of the long-awaited final report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission.
Mr Brannigan (55) spent almost a year in Nazareth Lodge care home in Belfast after his mother Peggy, a mother of three, found out she was pregnant after having an affair.
His mother later collected him from the care home and brought him up believing he was adopted.
Speaking this week, Mr Brannigan said the stigma of being a child given up at birth followed him through his life.
“It seems alien now but in my childhood it was very much part of my culture that there were secrets. I sensed the stigma that sometimes came in the street but also a couple of times at home,” he said.
“The first time I realised I was black was when one of my brothers pointed it out to me and told me I was born in a home.”
In those days, the church saw so-called “illegitimate” children as a problem to be solved, he said.
“When people went to the home in those days in the 1960s, there were 200 kids there at any one time. Kids were seen as problems and the nuns were glad for someone to take them off their hands,” he added.
It led to a culture where anyone could pick any child they wanted — meaning black children or those who had a disability were left behind.
“The questions were, ‘have you got a job’ and ‘have you got a house’. That meant you were respectable. Children were seen as problems and that’s all over the report.”
Mr Brannigan didn’t know the truth of the circumstances surrounding his birth until he was 19.
“She wrote not for adoption in the big ledger book [in the home]. The Catholic Church was all nods and winks but on a moral level there wasn’t much they could do because I was her child. They facilitated this plan. This week I felt very lucky as I listened to people on the radio,” said Mr Brannigan.
The publication of the report, which details the experiences of women and children who lived in 14 mother and baby homes and four county homes — a sample of the overall number of homes — between 1922 and 1998 and confirms that about 9,000 children died in the homes under investigation, has prompted emotion alongside other events in Mr
Brannigan’s life, he said.
A daughter he never knew he had has reconnected with him in recent weeks. “She waited until it was the right moment in her life. When I was her age, I was hostile to the idea of searching for my father but life changes you.
“A lot of the reaction is why do you come forward and what do you want. When I was listening to people last night, there was a man saying ‘I just want to know’. There’s something elemental and primal in humans,” he said.
Of the infants who are known to have died in mother and baby homes, Mr Brannigan says there is survivor guilt and he feels “lucky” he was not left there.
He is glad Taoiseach Micheal Martin on Wednesday offered an apology for the treatment of women and children in the homes.
“I felt glad that he said it and that the state acknowledged what happened and it wasn’t your fault all the stuff the nuns did to you,” he said. “All the names you were called. The nuns were wrong, that was abuse. I’m aware that there are a lot of people who are dissatisfied.”
‘I felt glad that he said it and the state acknowledged what happened and it wasn’t your fault all the stuff the nuns did to you’