Unmarried mothers’ repatriations: ‘I should never have been in Ireland’

“You are the blood in my veins, the water in my tears. But it still hurts me. You are so close, but still I can’t touch you.”

Maria Cahill explores the trauma of her early life in poetry.

She was six weeks old when her mother, Philomena, was repatriated to Ireland from Britain.

Maria was born in London – a British citizen – but was also sent to one of Ireland’s mysterious ‘mother and child homes’.

They were considered places of punishment for sins.

Her story raises important questions about a repatriation program for thousands of unmarried women and girls in the 1930s through the 1970s.

Her trip was organized by government agencies and religious charities.

Activists say the allegedly voluntary repatriations have in many cases been forced on the women.

At her home in Doncaster, West Yorkshire, 69-year-old Maria told me: “I should never have been to Ireland because I was born in London.”

“I really wish[the trip to Ireland]hadn’t happened in my life.”

I’ve been in contact with Maria and her daughter Fiona for the past six months and speak to them about their efforts to uncover missing details about Maria’s early years.

After nearly seven decades, it is evident that Maria feels a great loss for the woman from whom she was finally separated when she was just two years old.

Pictures of Philomena hang in Maria’s living room.

“She must have loved me so much,” Maria said as she reflected on a treasured photograph of her on Philomena’s knees at a facility for unmarried mothers in Castlepollard, County Westmeath.

Philomena Cahill was 19 when she gave birth to Maria in Hendon in 1954.

She had moved to the English capital to work in a cigarette factory.

While in town, she met Maria’s father.

Maria has spent 40 years compiling documents and trying to solve the mysteries of her childhood.

More recently, Fiona has largely taken over the process of writing letters and requesting documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

They have ring binders full of plastic folders containing the correspondence and paperwork they received.

One letter states that in January 1954 – two months before Mary was born – a priest named Father Craven “referred” Philomena to an organization known as the Westminster Social Welfare Committee.

It was conducted “under the auspices of the Crusade of Rescue” – one of the key organizations involved in the repatriation program.

A baptismal certificate shows that Maria was baptized in a church in London on April 27, 1954, a month after her birth.

The next entry in the sequence is from the ledger of Castlepollard ‘mother and child home’ in County Westmeath – where Philomena and Maria arrived in May 1954.

Philomena spent two years there—then the standard time for so-called “moral rehabilitation” for unmarried mothers who were considered “first offenders.”

Maria said: “They took my mum’s name away because she was a ‘bad girl’ – and called her Cyril.”

The ledger records “Cyril” as Philomena’s “house name” – as the women and girls in the asylum were to be called during their time there.

Philomena and Maria last saw each other in 1956.

Maria shared how the woman who adopted her in Ireland was emotionally abused: “I grew up so lonely.”

In later life Maria and Philomena happened to live in Edinburgh at the same time – unknown to each other.

“I could have met my mother,” Maria said. “I feel like I’ve been taken out of her hands — I’ve been betrayed.”

Just how difficult it was for Maria to find out about her past is illustrated by the fact that she has a British birth certificate listing Philomena as her mother – and an Irish birth certificate listing her adoptive parents as her mother and father .

Maria only learned of Philomena’s identity after Philomena’s death.

Maria finds out that she has half-siblings – and that Philomena was also looking for her.

However, Philomena had been led to believe that Maria had been adopted in Canada.

“I was a loved and desired child,” Maria said, adding, “Why didn’t they tell her more about me?”

In the 20th century, the Catholic Church held great power in Ireland – and the country was more socially conservative than the UK.

Unmarried pregnant women often left Ireland to avoid being placed in oppressive institutions – most commonly to Britain.

Since what is now the Republic of Ireland gained independence from the UK in 1922, Irish emigrants to Britain have enjoyed almost all the rights of British citizens – including residency, health care and social security.

However, archives show that British welfare authorities and charities often viewed unmarried Irish mothers as a drain on resources.

dr Lorraine Grimes of Maynooth University, who examined the files, said: “There was a very strong emphasis on cost.”

“They said, ‘We take these women, place them in our facilities and need to find homes for their children.'”

The numbers were so high that a categorization emerged in official documents – “PFI” stands for “pregnant from Ireland,” a term survivors find demeaning.

In Ireland, the Catholic Church feared that children born to Irish women in England would be lost to the faith.

In 1931, representatives of the Dublin Government and English Catholic charities met at the Irish High Commission in London.

The Irish State agreed to pay half the cost of repatriating mothers who became pregnant in Ireland and had no other children.

However, there is evidence that some women were repatriated even though they had been in Britain for some time.

For example, in 1967 researcher Mary Frances Creegan documented the case of a woman who had moved to England at the age of eight – but was sent back to Ireland when she became pregnant years later.

dr Lorraine Grimes said that while the repatriations were meant to be optional, a number of mothers she spoke to “felt it was totally forced – they hadn’t had a choice”.

Several other scientists have cited similar findings.

More questions about human rights and consent surface in stories like that of Maria Cahill – who was born in the UK but moved to another country as a baby.

Maria’s daughter Fiona said there should be an official apology for what she described as an “anti-Irish and anti-single mothers programme”.

“There will never be a full sense of goodbye for my mother because she never had a reunion with her mother.

“But just getting the truth out there and apologizing would mean so much.”

The number of women and children involved in repatriations is difficult to determine.

The Catholic Protection and Rescue Society of Ireland (CPRSI), one of Dublin’s main organizations, reported that it facilitated the repatriation of 2,610 mothers between 1948 and 1971.

The highest annual number of 213 was recorded in 1967.

Government records also indicate that there were 195 CPRSI repatriations between 1938 and 1948.

However, the overall scope is likely to be larger—first, because there are no verifiable numbers for the 1920s and most of the 1930s.

For example, a charity in the Port of Liverpool reported having had contact with 1,947 pregnant Irish women between 1926 and 1930.

It is not known how many were repatriated.

There are documented cases of women being sent to Ireland from various other places – including Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester and Portsmouth.

Also, some repatriations were not documented at all.

dr Grimes said: “There were informal underground arrangements – by priests, by parents – that were not mentioned in any official record.”

The challenges of piecing together “fragmented” statistics is one of the reasons why she says more research is needed – and government “needs to confront this institutional past”.

“Many of the survivors have died and others are aging. So it’s important that this happens now and we don’t wait another decade.”

The Irish government said it was “aware of the distress and deep hurt felt by many repatriated survivors”.

She sent a detailed statement to the BBC outlining the work and findings of the Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Child Homes, which will publish its final report in 2021.

The Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) at the time, Micheál Martin, apologized to the institutions’ survivors, saying: “Each of you has done nothing wrong and has nothing to be ashamed of.”

The government also said that “under recent legislation, full birth information and tracing services are now being provided”.

The Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary who run the Castlepollard facility said they had no knowledge or information about the issues we raised.

The organization said it passed all its records of mother and child homes to the Irish Health and Welfare Authorities in 2009.

Maria has spoken about her experiences and hopes she can help other survivors.

“My advice to women going through this is to stay strong.

“There is always a paper trail.

“It may have taken 40 years, but at some point the individual parts of my life will come together.”