The Adoption Machine: The Dark History of Ireland’s Mother & Baby Homes and the Inside Story of How ‘Tuam 800’ Became a Global Scandal
£3.80
MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of most 800 babies in the ‘Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised nation, and lead to a Commission of Inquiry.
In The Adoption Machine, Paul Jude Redmond, Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors, who himself was born in the Castlepollard Home, candidly reveals the shocking history of one of the worst abuses of Church power since the foundation of the Irish State. From Bessboro, Castlepollard, and Sean Ross Abbey to St. Patrick’s and Tuam, a dark shadow was cast by the collusion between Church and State in the systematic repression of women and the wilful neglect of illegitimate babies, resulting in the deaths of thousands.
It was Paul’s exhaustive research that widened the global media’s attention to all the homes and revealed Tuam as just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors that lay beneath. He further reveals the vast profits generated by selling babies to wealthy adoptive parents, and details how infants were volunteered to a pharmaceutical company for drug trials without the consent of their natural mothers. Interwoven throughout is Paul’s poignant and deeply personal journey of discovery as he attempts to find his own natural mother.
The Adoption Machine exposes this dark history of Ireland’s shameful and secret past, and the efforts to bring it into the light. It is a history from which there is no turning away.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Merrion Press (19 Mar. 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 6806 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 313 pages |
by John Broadbent
This book gives facts and figures and is not sentimental or sensationalist. What makes me give 5 stars for me is that it has helped me to understand many of the strange, startling and sometimes downright astonishing attitudes, opinions and ‘teachings’ of my Irish Catholic relatives who was born in the late 30’s and early 40’s. Having always been the rebel in my family I refuse to accept anything I hear and only half of what I see. Having read this book I have realised how strong the Church was in oppressing believers’ opinions and actions.
by zoony
Very sad read but an interesting and much needed insight into what really happened in these awful institutions I hope the author finds some peace now he and others have highlighted the disgraceful treatment of the mother and babies and the abhorrent way the government tried to hide the atrocities for so long so many pieces of the jigsaw still to fit peace to all involved
by David M.
If you want to know the history time line of Castelpollard ,the Manor House … If your adopted , it names St Joseph’s on the birth cert then this book will give you history ,the real stories of adopted children in Ireland … Castlepollard is just one of many houses that were operating in Ireland .. This is lovely well written book on history of the Manor House , by one man who went on to learn his faith from time he was born in Castelpollard, the truth of cover up that was to lead him to be strong man who continues to fight for truth ,about all those young mothers their children who were left at Grace of Catholic Church , just because they were pregnant outside marriage
by Ken Scott
This was a truly shocking revelation when discovered by the wider public of Ireland, north and south. Religion in ireland has a lot to answer for.
The book was well written and informative in relation to the subject matter. I feel so angry by the horror suffered by so many and in the same instant so humbled by those asking for true (natural) justice to occur. The government needs to stand up and be counted as the instrument of that justice in any way that it can. Moreover, it should bring to account the church who acted without compassion, completely for forgetting, that only God can judge a person not them. Something that Jesus said was completely missed, ‘ suffer the child to be come into me…’. REST IN PEACE little ones.
by Deni
Bought for a family member who had seen a TV article. He says it was very hard to read as he kept crying and could feel the trauma leeching of the page. He went back to read it a second time as he felt his emotions did not let him take in the full story the first time round.
by Ken Scott
As a historian, researcher and author, whenever I read or write of conflict and controversy the dark spectre of the Catholic Church surfaces again and again and again and again. From the Crusades to the Medieval Inquisitions, to the Second World War, the Spanish Civil War, institutional cases of child rape, peadophilia, torture and abuse, not to mention the scandalous cover ups, my research has left me almost desensitised to the direct involvement of The Vatican and very little shocks or surprises me.
I picked up and approached Redmond’s book with an air of, “I’ve heard it all before.”
This book was written by a survivor of a religious organisation who systematically and without critiscism oversaw and profited from Adoption, an organisation that stole, sold and mudered tens of thousands of Ireland’s babies.
The book concentrates heavily on the scandoulous infant mortality rates within these Mother and Baby Homes and the author’s painstaking research points to even greater horrors. On more than one occasion he documents the improvement in mortality rates when the Church embarked on the highly lucrative ‘sale’ of babies to America in particular, where the Church controlled the entire process, even to the point of vetting the would be parents, where the only two requisites were that they had to be Catholic and rich.
Redmond takes us through a concise history of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes and in particular the horror of ‘Tuam 800.’ He touches on the slave labour camps known as the ‘Magdelane Laundries’ and details the collusion between State and church. He names and shames the politicians, the Archbishops and Cardinals, the MPs and Ministers and even the Prime Ministers of Ireland who have colluded with the Church since the Irish Parliament came into existence. He quotes Taoiseach John Costello in 1951 who stated that the Church would receive “our complete obediance and allegiance,” Costello went on to say “I am an Irishman second, I am a Catholic first and I accept without qualification in all respects the teaching of the heirachy and the church to which I belong.”
Costello’s attitude very much sums up what Redmond has been up against for most of his adult life. Redmond’s book is a damning inditement of a corrupt and evil system, a system of collusion, control and of secrecy. This book has many components, the author charts his struggle and that of his fellow survivors determined to dig up the truth and the obstacles they had to overcome. He also touches on his own personal account of trying to find his natural mother, not an easy read at times and certainly not the happy ending that we all wanted. I finished this head shaking, jaw dropping account within 24 hours of receiving it. The adjectives to describe it are too many to even mention. I have rated Redmond’s book four stars for only one reason, and that’s because there is so much unwritten, so much unfinished business so to speak. His dog with a bone approach has been directed purely against the State and the politicians and as starting point I suppose that is understandable. But I want more, I want a follow up book, I want the Catholic Church to be challenged, held to account and I want the documents and ledgers detailing the billions of pounds and dollars they made from the biggest ever child trafficking operation ever undertaken. I want the priests and nuns put on the witness stand, I want at least one of them to come forward and tell us the truth. And yet we hear very little from the main instigators behind the ‘Homes of Horror.’
Mr Redmond, please tell me that this book is simply a work in progress?
by Julie Bo
A really comprehensive overview of Ireland’s mother and baby homes. It’s a very sad read, but extremely enlightening, factual and well written. I would highly recommend this book, I just couldn’t put it down.
by M. J. Hayden
Paul Redmond provides a committed and honest account of the prevarications of the various powers involved in committing, hiding or making excuses for the various forms of cruelty suffered by the many unmarried mothers and their babies in Ireland over a century of abuses.