In the corner of an unremarkable childrens playground in the irish town of choom county go away a small patch of land has been walled off. A patch of land with an awful secret. Very. Tiny baby. 6 years ago local historian Catherine Corless realized that under the grass in and around an old septic tank like the bodies of hundreds of babies and infants. That sewage tank was in the grounds of a mother and baby home run by catholic nuns known as the sisters the women and girls whod fallen pregnant outside of marriage. The survivors and families of those who died were horrified the story came out about a town trying to find a septic tank and i knew me too and i think that was my mothers baby we wanted her. From they have d. N. A. Tests us. Under pressure from Widespread International concern in 2015 the Irish Government set up an official commission of investigation into islands mother and baby. Is the Commission Building if ever there so i. Dont look much really for the survive as it represents all their hopes and their fears and this is patients. The commission was due to produce its final reports in 2018. Cases still not done so. Its an uphill struggle the whole time to keep on top of the government to remind them to get the started to get this going. Nearly 800 babies died in chew. But that is just part of the story. The commission is investigating 14 of the republics mother and baby homes of which 10 were run by catholic orders in these films we investigate evidence that between 4 and 6000 babies and infants died in their care. And on salute babies were dying and did it nothing about its the collective babies to death. And we reveal how what began as a church and state sponsored moral crusade became a conveyor belts of institutional abuse. I was deprived of a mother and then their child to deprive my children my son. Of a mother. This is a scandal which has destroyed families cost thousands of lives and raised profound questions about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the irish states. And the british left we got a substitute oppressor which was the church but the church did not do it alone the church was aided and abetted by the state. It all began so differently. In 1916 islands heroic but doomed easter rising was brutally crushed by the british but it left a hugely symbolic legacy a proclamation. Guaranteed universal suffrage and equal rights to all its citizens. A proclamation of irish independent actually quite a beautiful document that begins all irishmen and irishwomen on our quality as a stablished from the very beginning. But for the victims of irelands mother and baby homes that promise of justice and equality was to be cruelly betrayed. The people who took. Control of the mechanics of government. They were arch conservative they were 100 in glove with the Catholic Church. 2 men came to epitomize that relationship Prime Minister of a lair are regarded by many as the father of the modern republic of ireland and archbishop john charles mcquaid. Mcquade worked very closely with him you could almost say that devil lera it was the Prime Minister. The position of the Catholic Church as the arbiter of all that was ethical correct and moral in a society. Became beyond challenge. They wished to tray this island as a shining light of catholicism. But with no Sex Education allowed in schools and contraception and abortion bans by church and states pregnancies outside marriage were perhaps inevitable. And the solution to that. Was mother and baby homes. The whole point of faith institutions was take height and contain any sexual morality from the catholic. Maiden who commissioned crimes against women and children werent because they werent evidence but the pregnant woman was evidence the l. H. S. From a child was evidence that people had sex out of sight of marriage. From the 1922 new mother and baby homes sprung up across the country. Presented to young women as a solution to their shameful sin they were actually no such thing they are a state and the Catholic Church created them. Holding the soldier in the states. And they did so through the architecture of containment. Thats all detector of containment incorporated islands notorious magdalene laundries well hundreds of socalled foreign women were subjected to brutal regimes of forced labor. Peace included the countrys network of bleak Industrial Schools often edges part penal institutions run by orders of nuns and brothers. On the final elements the mother and baby homes in the near 7 decades of their existence more than 30000 women would pass through their doors. So this is a matter of what it was before it was the mother but thats right says her feeling in her costar. A 1st for me is that there would be at least maybe 200. 00 mothers theres a time. I was censored choom in 1937 they for most of her life she kept it secret from her daughter annette. As a child any discussion about the nobles meant mom was in trouble i think would be. Just complete trauma and stress that. I couldnt understand who these nuns were and what theyd done to us. As i got older and she started to talk to me and she started to tell me about the not. Maggie was just 13 when her mother and grandmother died leaving her to 7 younger brothers and sisters unable to cope the children were taken away not into cash but to coax. Mom was charged because thats what it said with what charged found destitute and sentenced to 2 and a half years in line to buy castle in galway that was run by the sisters of mercy. A little boy castle was a particularly cruel Industrial School and inspector at the time describe the children there as emaciated code dirty and unhappy and said their diet had been reduced almost to starvation that. Maggies life in learnable was filled with suffering when she was 17 it got worse. She was raped by the caretaker and she didnt tell anybody about that rape until she was 70. She was so adamant it was raping me and she was taken she was taken to mother and baby because she was pregnant outside marriage. Maggie was moving to the next stage on the churches conveyor belts of abuse. But what matter what a situation was it was always a woman or thought she had done something to put herself not situation our shit on something too late a man on it helped my mother is the dehumanization became the way of human rights totally destroyed. And a corrigans mother Bridget Dolan was also sent there she never told her daughter. My mother died. 2001. 1000 of them i decide is just one family research. They both came as damaged people my mother from the mother a baby arms. And my father from the Industrial School. When her father william was just 7 his mother had died of tuberculosis with tragic consequences for william and his siblings the children were sentenced to 10 years in industrial scale as. A crime then the mother died. William system ali ended up in some brigids Industrial School for girls run by the sisters of mercy in locker a. Former inmates here have reported both physical and sexual abuse. When molly was just 13 she became ill and died. There is a need for an orderly numbs graveyard in front of the school mollys grave is unknown and on my. Growing up i didnt know anything about us i knew nothing about my parents life. But the familys biggest secrets as anna discovered was that her mother had twice become pregnant before meeting her father and was sent to have babies and do pennance ensure. They had to bury the secret its a very distant im still trying to process how she. Irelands architecture of containment targeted women its identified as sinful and the poor it soars undeserving. But it stands charged with targeting another group for its ethnicity. Im a member of the chav and say and my culture the bogeyman the cruelty man. He was a child. It took children need he took children away from their families their parents. One day in 1951 when Katherine Kofi obriens mother was a small Child Cruelty man officially a Child Protection officer arrived at her familys camp and seized her and her 9 siblings these are children. They were 1 sentenced in various Industrial Schools. Like so many traveling families before and since the children were scattered in institutions across the country katherines aunt died at 17 in cologne and. We still dont know how she died. 2 of her uncles ended their days in sindh finians Mental Hospital by the 950 s. Ireland had the highest proportion of people in Mental Hospitals in the world more even than the u. S. S. R. On the stall in my grandmother care. And. Poverty. Never seen any of them are but 2 for children again she didnt even know where our daughter was buried. Meanwhile catherines traumatise mother married briefly and had catherine but with a moment in the notes of mental institutions katherine was sent to a succession of Industrial Schools where she experienced constant racist abuse and violence often at the hands of nuns i was torn in a bass. And i was scrubbed to an inch of my life scott the nascar for me was the tom used its a very recessed. Negative tom. Catherine did eventually escape Industrial School moved into a bit suits and fell in love. But the happiness was not so long before i got pregnant and i found out that he had a fling with him while i met a girl. Wind social work arse. And she said to me theres a place the car you go to she said. Katherine was being sense a best buy or a mother and baby home run by the sisters of the sacred heart of jesus and mary. She was going back to an institution. And the. Connector i watched. It was almost like you had a terrible in your back. At least 900 babies and infants are known to have died in best the last in 1994. But the burial places of only 64 recorded. The sisters whose convent still overlooks the ground claim to have no idea where they buried the other 800. 00 or more. And more tonight. I dont believe for one second they dont know where the burial grounds are. The same order of nuns ran another home Sean Ross Abbey and ross creates a prairie they sold the buildings in 2018. The 1st time that any film co have been allowed inside the reason collins was born here. You thought it was huge this is your 1st impression. And i was. But as you go down along your feet a secret. Once youre in youre in. 9 years ago the sisters supply the government with death registers which showed the 269 babies died in shaun royal sabby between 19341967. But an examination of the towns official death records reveals a rather different figure. In reality over a 1000 babies and infants died in the home. Each mother came in was never called by their own name they always had the house name. And. 1989 i was told aside my name was jane decided to take my culture for me and my family with me they took my money their identity was taken away their human rights was taken away their hair was taken away their clothes was taken away prisoners got better treatment. The nuns imposed the regime of relentless back breaking work in the fields and indoors maggie my mother remembers being heavily pregnant should members the length of the halls shift to scrub that was just a never ending job. Every one of them downstairs as we say out of sight. Now as far as we can gather just was the delivery. The reason being down here is so. There would be no pain relief allowed no pain relief available the pain of childbirth would be part of your saying and i tell men to be. Tough or not in your direction right whispering in your area when youre given a horrendous ferreted breach very bad it was or churchill minutes of pleasure your child is an example. In castle poland where over 220 babies are known to have died survivors speak of the screaming room. And out house where mothers in labor were taken when the cries of agony got too loud. So the baby would have power and then she would be allowed a few tears rest with the baby but then it was back to work and from that point shed only be allowed to see the baby to breastfeed the baby so it was just to me out of a crowd bringing in the cows for making. Mothers we usually compelled to stay in the home for a year or more working unpaid to feed their child and in penance for their sins a woman has a baby out of wedlock with smart sen can you imagine a martin stan a mortar on the water in the us Church Christmas sent. Here are parable of the larger downtown at a fire. And when the time of penance was up they were car stamps and made to leave their children behind. Julia devaney lived with the nuns in choosing from 1926 when she was just 8 until the home closed in 1961. And when she left she recalls the suffering of the young mother was. Only. One of the. People. Or. Even more of. When my mother actually left it was in the middle of the biggest snowstorm we ever had an art and. I have this picture of a walking of the rather sad case im going to leave a baby behind. And it doesnt know if her mother was ever given news of joan the son she left behind. But we do have a description of him its from a government inspector who visited shoom shortly afterwards a miserable emaciated child with gracious appetite and no control over bodily functions probably mentally defective. Less than 2 months later he was dead. John was born nominal healthy. They starved him to death theres no question about it i may see a shot youre starving for a shit up but i end up being fat. The government inspector also noted that out of 66. 00 babies born bored mid to the home in the previous 6 months 21 nearly a 3rd of them died. When Annette Mkhize mother maggie gave birth to her daughter Mary Margaret in june it seems she tried to resist the nuns rules anybody who was. Cheeky would disagree with the nuns i demand to see their child they were the problem so she was. Baccarat Industrial School. There in early june 1943 just 6 months after shed given birth a nun approached maggie with some news about the daughter shed left behind in june. She remembers sol clearly the day. Packing and washing the nunc a told to the child if you also need to add and let it go the same day and that would be no funeral there would be no. Now more sighting of the baby from the mother it must have just felt like the baby just disappeared. There are no photographs of annette sister Mary Margaret and his brother john to remember their short lives by. There is not even a record of where they were buried. But all the evidence points to that septic tank by the childrens playground in choom. Yet despite the litany of death and neglects the inspector had found on his visit to cheer him he concluded. The care given to infants in the home is good the sisters are careful and to attentive diets are excellent. The nuns who got away with it. And across islands with the support of the state and the church all forces they would continue to get away with it for decades. In part 2 of our investigation into the mother and baby home scandal we look at the fates of the babies those who survived and those who did not the babies were just another kobashi thats all we were to the church we reveal the shocking treatments of unmarked child graves in one home. And we find dramatic new evidence about the possible location of missing babies in best. Very dense an area. Where they are regularly they much. For an individual. And we ask why 5 years after the official commission of investigation was established no one has been called to account they just dont want to believe that it happened on the scale it happened because any fellow. Polish irish statement. This isnt going away. We asked the religious orders named in this film to respond to the issues weve raised both declined to be interviewed the sisters of the sacred hearts said they were cooperating fully with the commission of investigation in a brief statement they added we provided the service for these women we did not create society which contributed to such exclusion and pain the sisters of consequence said only that they continued to cooperate with the commission and could not comment ahead of its final report. In the conclusion of the 2 part series people in paris vesta gates allegations that Irish Catholic nuns facilitated the traffic babies the church realized that babies that are they could be sold to america as scouting quite they use and reveals shocking new evidence of how and when havent you just noticed disposed of those who died for a key torn in the system like this fund church and state are committed to keep the church from coming helps islands mother in baby scandal on out is the era. Played Important Role in protecting human. Face. Hello im daryn jordan doha with a quick reminder of the top stories here on aljazeera millions of displaced syrians will now have only one Turkish Border crossings through which to receive aid thats after several attempts to keep a 2nd crossing open failed to pass at the u. N. Security council diplomatic editor james bays has more from the United Nations this is the position that russia backed by china wanted and they have now got it there were some other things that russia and china wanted and thats why in the end in the vote they abstain didnt vote for it and that was on sanctions they wanted some language condemning the sank