This deeply affecting Irish documentary delves into the history of the institutionalisation of pregnant women from the 1920s to the 90s by various Irish institutions including the Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries.

I first heard about the laundries when watching the Sinead O’Connor documentary Nothing Compares (2023). This documentary begins with the accidental unearthing of the bones of hundreds of babies in Tuam in the former grounds of a Mother and Baby Home and their fate becomes a metaphor that runs through the film – their graveyard walled off with lots of governmental hand-wringing and deliberate avoidance of any personalisation of the tragedy. Director Margo Harkin gives us the stories from a series of women and men who represent the thousands affected by an essentially misogynistic and patriarchal state and culture.

The stories are horrendous, and at the heart of all of them is the belief that women are not entitled to choice and control about their own bodies. For many it was forced adoption of their child, some never meeting them again with the few being lucky enough to find their child or their parents or their mother some 40 years later. For many it was being fostered out as the equivalent of indentured labour, often abused physically, emotionally and sexually, with no ability to do anything about it.

For some it was the humiliation  and forced labour while heavily pregnant and under the benevolent ‘care’ of nuns, made to dance for nuns for their entertainment, or having to scrub the floor of their own amniotic fluid when their waters broke. We get some small insight into the nuns who run the institutions – for many women it was the only life that allowed them to be independent of men and have some status and power.

What we learn is that although they have been commissions and investigations, there is still a state machine that is deeply embedded in Catholicism and  is not committed to the well-being or reparation for women who have been essentially damaged. It has echoes of the stolen generations in Australia, the same powerlessness, abuse and reluctance to acknowledge fault.  Yes the head of the Catholic Church apologises to camera, yes the head of state of Ireland talk about their shame and commitment to righting wrongs but the reality of it is finger pointing and a lack of genuine humility or will to do anything tangible.

What struck me was the stoicism and calmness of the victims who were prepared to speak up. They have all made something of their lives and I couldn’t help thinking of the thousands who didn’t, whose lives ended early and of the 9,000 dead infants, many who died of hunger and preventable diseases. Hunger! These church and state run institutions, who were given money every month for each child, and yet they died of hunger. The shame is not with the women who became pregnant.