By Steph Lacey 4 September 2024
Directed by Margo Harkin, Stolen is a chilling account of the Magdalene Laundries, where Irish women and girls were sent for engaging in a sexual relationship that a parent or priest didn’t approve of, or more often, for being victims of rape, having a disability etc. – “social regressions” that didn’t fit the “ideal that was enforced by the Church and state.”
It also gives accounts from Mother and Baby ‘Homes’, where unmarried pregnant people were sent to give birth and have their children taken off them to be fostered or adopted, and accounts from industrial schools where children were imprisoned and put to work, often because of reasons connected to poverty. The film also highlights cases of cycles of abuse, with survivors going through all three institutions.
Uncovering horror
It opens with an aerial view of the grounds around ‘the Angels Plot’ in Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea. This scenic shot could be mistaken for a promotional video of Ireland’s picturesque green landscape, until the voice over informs you that it is believed the trees were strategically planted to cover the unmarked graves of children, adding “there are dark secrets here, horrors of the recent past oozing to the surface.”
It then cuts to the playground in Tuam, cemented over mass unmarked graves, which Harkin describes as “a portal to a haunted past, silently waiting to be discovered.”
The documentary shows how it has been survivors themselves – women institutionalised, or children born there – who have been tirelessly leading the fight for the truth. Similarly, people like Catherine Corless who did incredible work to discover what the Catholic Church tried so hard to hide.
The 796 death certs of babies and toddlers found in Tuam revealed horrific and appalling causes of deaths, including marasmus – defined as a form of severe malnutrition, usually in children, where body weight is reduced to less than 62%. The Church received a payment to care for every child born in these institutions, so why was even one child in there dying of marasmus? Indeed, 15% of all children born in these institutions died, which equated to five times the national average at the time.
PFI – Pregnant From Ireland
In the documentary, Terri Harrison tells her story about how after getting pregnant she escaped to London. After a fall there she was taken to receive care in a hospital, when a woman visited her asking lots of questions. Harrison thought she was a hospital admin, but found out that she was a woman who was doing her internship as a social worker for the ‘Catholic Crusade and Rescue Society’, and she marked Harrison in her notes as a PFI – pregnant from Ireland. Harrison was then unwillingly taken by the Church from one jurisdiction to another, to give birth in Ireland and have her son taken off her.
We are well aware of the human trafficking of children in Ireland by the Catholic Church, but women and girls who were pregnant were kidnapped and trafficked too. “Get on with your life. You’ll have more babies” was what Harrison was told by a nun after she tried to find her stolen son.
No going back
While the far right are on the rise in Ireland, making statements about how “we need to preserve the Catholic foundations that have shaped our nation’s identity”, we need to remember what identity the Catholic Church has given us. The last Magdalene laundry closed in 1996, the last Mother and Baby Home in 1998. If you are living with trauma, or a victim of generational trauma, that is not something ‘of the past’. That is very much of the present, and should be treated as such.
People all over Ireland are having to navigate their lives with the trauma of these institutions. People have died without answers, and more people are going to die without answers, but we can’t stop talking about it and fighting for justice. In the closing words of the documentary: “The Church has been given far too much leeway. They’re able to behave exactly as they please, and government after government kowtow to them, and it’s an absolute disgrace. They are criminals as far as I’m concerned.”