Philomena: Pay families for heartache
MOTHER and baby home survivor Philomena Lee has said that all the families affected should be paid compensation for their ‘unbearable suffering’ at the hands of the State.
Ms Lee, whose life was the subject of the acclaimed 2013 movie Philomena, which starred Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, also criticised the leaking at the weekend of the Mother and Baby Homes Report, saying it would add to the ‘heartache and trauma’ of those affected.
Ms Lee grew up in an orphanage and, after leaving at the age of 18, became pregnant and was sent to Sean Ross Abbey Mother and Baby Home outside Roscrea in Co. Tipperary.
She said she was made an ‘unpaid servant’ and was subject to the tyranny of the nuns, who told her she was shameful and sinful. Three years later, Ms Lee’s son Anthony was taken from her without her knowledge and sent to the US.
Ahead of the publication of the report today, Ms Lee said she had waited decades for ‘the moment when Ireland reveals how tens of thousands of unmarried mothers, such as I, and the tens of thousands of our beloved children, such as my dear son Anthony, were torn asunder’.
She added: ‘It is essential that the Irish State and various churches involved in the enslavement of unmarried mothers and the trading of their children, would apologise, without reservation, and would compensate the many generations of families who have suffered unbearable suffering and loss as a result of the State’s failure to recognise and honour the equality promised to all Irish citizens by the State’s founders.’