The Good Shepherd Sisters have said adoptions organised through their home in Northern Ireland were “conducted strictly in accordance with the legislation”, following a BBC investigation to be broadcast tonight (22 May) that will claim babies were moved out of the UK without their mothers’ consent.
Tonight’s File on 4 programme focuses on the former Marianvale mother and baby home in County Down, which provided accommodation between 1955 and 1984 for hundreds of unmarried mothers, many of whom went on to give their babies up for adoption. According to the programme makers, some of those mothers claim the adoptions were not voluntary, and that laws were broken and documents falsified.
One of the mothers interviewed is Karen, whose mother stayed at Marianvale in 1968 and who was born nearby. Karen claims she was moved illegally from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland and cared for there by nuns of another religious order before being adopted by a couple from Texas.
According to the programme, Karen’s birth appears to have been registered three times: once in Northern Ireland, a second time in the Republic, and a third time in the USA.
Reporters at File on 4 have seen the Marianvale baptism book, which apparently contains information on around 800 babies and reveals that some were moved across state borders. Patrick Corrigan of Amnesty International said a thorough, independent investigation was needed into what took place at the home. Meanwhile the religious order involved – whose full name is the Sisters of Our Lady of the Good Shepherd - issued a statement that said: “We utterly reject any suggestion that illegal adoptions were conducted from Marianvale”.
Some children who were born in the home and later adopted are currently searching to find their birth mothers, and feel they are in a race against time to find them before they die. In the programme, they claim they are facing a trail of secrecy and obfuscation and may not discover their mothers’ identities in time to meet them.
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