Judi Dench pays tribute to Mother and Baby Homes survivor Philomena Lee
The Oscar-winner portrayed Lee in the 2013 film Philomena, which documented her 50-year search for her forcibly adopted son, Anthony. By Press Association Thursday 14 Jan 2021, 8:00 PM Jan 14th 2021, 8:00 PM 41,827 Views 13 Comments
Image: PA Images
Image: PA Images
JUDI DENCH HAS paid tribute to Mother and Baby Homes survivor and campaigner Philomena Lee, describing her as a “remarkable person”.
The Oscar-winner portrayed Lee in the 2013 film Philomena, which documented her 50-year search for her forcibly adopted son, Anthony.
Dench was commenting after the release of the Commission of Investigation’s report into the lives of women and children at Mother and Baby homes between 1922 and 1998.
Tipperary TD Michael Lowry is calling on all religious orders to publicly apologise to the survivors of Mother and Baby Homes. His comments in the Dáil follow an apology by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on behalf of the State yesterday, saying that women and children sent to these homes were failed. The independent TD assessed the […]
Sister Hildegarde McNulty
It was there, under the watchful eye of Sister Hildegarde McNulty, a nun brought to international notoriety in the movie Philomena that the first die was cast on a life filled with sadness ever since. Sister Hildegarde, who arranged the US adoption of Philomena Lee’s birth son as depicted in the 2013 film, also arranged Colleen’s adoption to a couple living in Chicago. Margaret McNulty Anderson, the adoptive mother, was Hildegarde’s niece.
“I lived in Niles (near Chicago) when I was younger, then we moved to as suburb called Park Ridge,” recalls Colleen.
“My adoptive parents had a natural daughter, my older sister, and it was just the four of us.”
Nuns treated 11-year-old rape victims as if they were prostitutes : How schoolgirls were among 56,000 mothers sent to hellish Irish homes where 9,000 babies died and bodies were buried in shoeboxes - as survivors slam cop-out report
Some 56,000 unmarried mothers and 57,000 children went to hellish Mother and Baby homes in Ireland
Commission of Investigation found that 15 percent of the children died between 1922 and 1998
Report pointed the blame at families and fathers who turned their backs on the unmarried, pregnant women
The very high mortality rates were known to local and national authorities and were officially recorded
Many of the women were forced to seek refuge in the homes for fear of the their families and neighbours discovering their pregnancies