Hi Erin,
Decades ago when I lived in Dublin I often passed St. Patrick's Home.
I am doing a bit of searching on the web for you....so far, I have come up with:
http://users.erols.com/bcccsbs/bass/new_25magd.html"She was born in St Patrick's Home for Unmarried Mothers on the Navan Road in Dublin. Her mother was one of thousands who found herself pregnant and unmarried in the 1940s, her family unable to meet her needs. St Patrick's at this time had 500 babies, it was severely overcrowded. Separated at eight months, Kathleen and her mother lived parallel lives in religious institutions. She describes a childhood ``of distance and denial'' and then spending all her life trying to get a profile of a relationship between herself and her mother."
DUBLIN, Nov. 21 — Everyone of a certain age in Ireland knows about the Magdalene Asylums, where women who offended the country's moral code were sent to live, and sometimes to die, in disgrace.
When Charles Oliver was growing up in rural County Tipperary, a friend of his family disappeared into such a place in a cloud of shame after giving birth out of wedlock. But it was not until a recent evening that Mr. Oliver, 59, began to learn what really went on behind the locked doors of the Magdalene homes, which took in 30,000 women over the decades until the last one finally closed in 1996.
Emerging from a showing here of "The Magdalene Sisters," a film written and directed by Peter Mullan about the casual cruelty and commonplace despair in the homes, Mr. Oliver was stunned, and sad.
I remember recently seeing three "Magdalene Girls" being interviewed on telly when the above film previewed....the girls went through a tough time.
Hope that this helps.
Joe
