The Home Babies: The Church

Becky Milligan continues her series about a former home for unmarried mothers in Tuam in the West of Ireland, and the work of amateur historian Catherine Corless. Catherine's discoveries prompted the Irish Government to begin an investigation into mother and baby homes across Ireland. In Episode Eight Becky tries to find out how the Catholic church responds to the story of the baby remains being found in the grounds of the former mother and baby home in Tuam. She meets a retired social worker who was previously a nun for 30 years, and a former priest. They describe how "the Church had more power than the State" during the 1970’s, and how the priests and nuns saw themselves as the “moral guardians of the community…that nobody questioned.”