‘You have to keep asking, asking, asking’: Survivors of mother and baby homes still battling to access their records

SURVIVORS of mother and baby homes and their relatives are still trying to access key records, decades after the last home closed.

The Detail spoke to several survivors who said they are either being refused access to records related to their cases or have only received them after lengthy delays.

One survivor said vital files on her care have been lost, while the relative of another survivor said it has taken him years to find his father’s adoption file, after initially fearing it had been mislaid.

Adele Johnstone, of advocacy group Birth Mothers and their Children Together, said survivors are still facing blocks and delays.

“It’s constantly a run-around,” she said.

“You have to keep asking, asking, asking.”

In May 2022, an act to preserve documents related to historical institutions was passed into law.

The act aims to make sure that documents are safely kept and will not be destroyed.

John*, whose father was born to a woman who gave birth in a mother and baby home run by the Salvation Army, said he initially feared that his father’s file had been destroyed.

He was told that the Southern Health and Social Care Trust should have his father’s 1950 adoption file because he was adopted in that area.

However, the papers could not be found for several years. A few weeks ago, he discovered that the file is actually held by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust.

He and his family are now waiting to hear if they can access the file.

“I’ve been trying for years to get this file,” he said.

John said searching for the file had “taken its toll on me mentally and physically”.

“At least I now know the file exists and am really glad it hasn't been destroyed,” he said.

“I am not sure how much is in it, that's the unknown part, but (am) hoping that it may fill in some large gaps in my dad's life experience, which is unknown to us as a family.”

John’s grandmother’s story

John’s grandmother, who was from a Presbyterian background, was just 17 when she became pregnant in 1939.

An orphan from the age of nine, she was cared for by relatives until she was sent to work on a farm in Co Armagh as a teenager. The father of her baby was a 54-year-old married farmer.

In August 1939, her family sent her to Thorndale House, a mother and baby home in north Belfast run by the Salvation Army.

She gave birth in September 1939 and was kept at Thorndale with her son for just over a year.

Within six months, her son was fostered by a couple. When the boy, John’s father, was 11, the couple adopted him.

In 1950, at the age of 29, she gave birth to a second child in Belfast. John said he has no idea who the father was but understands she was not taken to Thorndale again.

In 1956, John’s grandmother became pregnant for a third time. She gave birth to a son and was taken to Thorndale House with her child for five months. She later fell ill and died in hospital, aged just 35. The child was later adopted.

John’s father was taken to his birth mother’s funeral, but his adopted parents told him that the dead woman was his aunt. He only discovered she was his mother a year later.

In February 1987, John’s father was told he had a half-brother, born in 1956. Six days later, John’s father died, aged just 47.

He never knew that he actually had two half-brothers, including one who had been born in 1950.

For decades, John has tried to get information about his father’s birth parents and life, particularly between his birth in 1939 and formal adoption in 1950.

He said not being able to access his father’s files has added to his family’s grief.

“My dad died from a massive heart attack,” he said.

“I was twenty at the time, my younger brother was 13. There were four of us. For us, it’s been a devastating time since my dad died."

He added: “How much do we have to go through to find out the absolute truth?”

“My mum is 83 and she wants to know about the man that she married.”

John said although relatives of an adopted person have no automatic right to see their files, he is hopeful his family will be given permission.

“The fact remains it has been in storage for 74 years, it could have helped my dad during his life discover the truth about his adoption, but it just sat on a shelf gathering dust,” he said.

He added: “My dad didn’t even know he was born in a mother and baby institution. He knew that he was adopted and that his mother was buried in an unmarked grave.

“It’s just been a complete nightmare. All these pieces get put together to build up a jigsaw of someone’s life. This is all I have left. I can’t go to my dad or his mum to ask questions.”

John said it was hugely important for his family, particularly his 83-year-old mother, that his father’s file has been found.

“This should hopefully give some assurance to those seeking information from social services that their adoption file still may exist for those who are going or may go through the mother and baby institutions process in the future,” he said.

He said his father knew very little about the circumstances of his birth and had been told lies about his birth mother.

“This is about getting justice for my dad and his mum, for people who have no voice,” he said.

“She was put in an institution at 17 years of age. They referred to the mothers and children in those homes as inmates. They were imprisoned.”

What were mother and baby homes?

For decades, unmarried pregnant women across Ireland were sent to homes run by the church or state to have their children.

Most of the children were either fostered or adopted.

Northern Ireland had more than a dozen mother and baby homes, which operated between 1922 and 1990.

In January 2021, a long-awaited report revealed that at least 10,500 women and girls, including rape and incest victims, had been sent to homes in the north.

Around 58% of women were between 20 and 29, but a third were under 19. One girl was just 12.

Women and children were also moved in and out of institutions across the Irish border.

Women told researchers the homes had an “authoritarian and judgemental atmosphere” and that they were made to carry out domestic labour.

The last institution - Marianville which was run by the Good Shepherd Sisters in Belfast - closed in 1990.

In November 2021, ministers agreed to establish a statutory public inquiry into the institutions and give immediate redress payments to survivors, as recommended in a report by the Truth Recovery Design Panel.

However, the inquiry was delayed after the executive collapsed in February 2022 due to a DUP boycott.

Following the restoration of the executive in February this year, a public consultation on plans for a public inquiry and early £10,000 payments for those eligible, was launched in June. The consultation closed in September.

Work is still ongoing but no date for the inquiry has been set.

Ann’s story

Ann* (64) has been trying to find out information about her birth for decades.

Her birth mother, from Co Armagh, was 19 when she became pregnant to her boyfriend.

She was sent to Marianville, a mother and baby home run by the Good Shepherd Sisters in south Belfast.

After Ann was born in 1960, she was initially fostered. Her foster parents, who lived in Co Tyrone, adopted her when she was aged one year and 11 months.

She was seven or eight when she learned she had been adopted. But she decided not to press her adopted parents for information.

“I always wanted to know about my ‘real’ mum but that would have been a betrayal of my mum and dad who really were my mum and dad in the sense of taking care of me,” she said.

For decades, she has tried to find out information about her birth.

In 1990, after a new law allowed adoptees the right to access their original birth certificate, Ann obtained her birth mother’s name from social services.

At the time, she learned that her birth mother was married and had a family.

“I knew where my mother was and I could have approached her, but because of health issues, and because she had a husband and I didn’t know if he knew of my existence, I didn’t take it further,” she said.

In 2010, after she learned her birth mother was now a widow, Ann wrote to her. However, her mother did not telephone Ann until three years later.

In 2014, after her adopted parents died, she asked social services again for information about her birth, and was told which mother and baby home her mother had been sent to.

Unhappy with the lack of information from her birth mother and social services, Ann visited her mother in 2014.

She was told her birth father’s name but discovered that he had died the previous year.

Ann also learned that she had been cared for in a children’s home for the first 10 months of her life.

In 2021, social services confirmed that she had been in Nazareth House, a baby home run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Portadown, Co Armagh.

When Ann wrote to the Sisters of Nazareth, she was told that, after the home in Portadown closed, the records were given to the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.

“I gave that letter to social services but they couldn’t turn up any records,” she said.

“So I don’t know where the records are.”

Ann has not been able to obtain any of her early medical records from the trust, and knows nothing about her health as a child.

“I don’t know what I weighed when I was born, if I was sickly,” she said.

“I suspect I was because I know as a young child I was sick for years. I’d like to get to the bottom of what was wrong with me.”

Ann would also like to see her court file, which could include some key information on the circumstances of her adoption.

“The whole arrangement with my adopted parents appears to have been done by the nuns in Nazareth House in Portadown,” she said.

Although a social worker has seen her court files, Ann said she had not been given access.

“I would argue that... I should be given access to any information that relates to me,” she said.

Ann said many people in similar circumstances are “yearning to know” who they are.

“I always say, you watch those programmes on TV like Long Lost Family and they have all these files,” she said.

“It’s not like that in Northern Ireland. It’s an absolute battle.”

Adele's story

Adele Johnstone (73), from Co Armagh, was born in 1951 to a single woman who had been sent to Mater Dei mother and baby home in Belfast, run by Catholic group the Legion of Mary.

She lived in Mater Dei with her mother until she was almost two.

She was later adopted.

Petite and blonde, Adele’s adopted family were all tall and had dark hair.

“I kept looking for someone who looked like me,” she said.

She added: “There’s this disconnect. I compare it to looking through a window and seeing everything that’s going on inside the room, but you’re not really part of it.”

When Adele herself became pregnant with a son, aged 17, her adopted mother and the parish priest sent her to Marianvale mother and baby home in Newry, run by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

She didn’t see her son for 40 years. They now have a strong relationship.

Ms Johnstone said she found “bits and pieces” about her own adoption, including her birth mother’s name, through papers her adopted parents had kept.

She managed to meet her birth mother when she was in her early twenties but they did not develop a relationship.

“I’ve been trying to get my records since my twenties,” she said. “I’m now 73.”

Ms Johnstone recently obtained records from the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust about her adoption.

“The records were indecipherable, but the woman (in the trust) was able to enlarge some of it,” she said.

“There were parts in it that were very hurtful like ‘she (her mother) does not want the child’. But I don’t know if that’s true.”

She added: “Why did she hold on to me for that length of time if she didn’t want me? It would have been impossible for her (to keep her child). She had no support.”

As a member of advocacy group Birth Mothers and Their Children Together, she has lobbied for better consistency in how public bodies approach requests for survivors’ and relatives’ files and records.

She said survivors are facing repeated difficulties in accessing information from social services and religious orders.

“It all seems to be very hit and miss, who you get or who you don’t,” she said.

“It’s improving slightly but there is no joined-up thinking.”

She said “it is vital” that all survivors have access to their records, ahead of the public inquiry.

“You need proof of where you were so you can give your testimony,” she said. “And when there is redress you need proof of where you were.”

She said the issue is particularly acute for mothers and babies who were sent across the border.

“I know someone who doesn’t know where she was born and is struggling with access,” she said.

“The information is spread out all over the place, which is a problem.

“Then you’ve got people from the south who were sent across the border to private nursing homes. Where are their records?”

The Detail contacted the Belfast and Southern health care trusts.

A spokesman for the Belfast trust said it had been working with the Department of Health "for a significant period of time in relation to the very sensitive and highly important area of access to adoption records".

He said updated guidance on access to records is expected to be published next summer.

"Ensuring that those impacted by adoption have access to records continues to be a priority for all adoption services regionally," he said.

"All health and social care trust staff involved are committed to assisting and supporting enquirers, and in providing them with as much information as possible to help them understand their family history."

A spokeswoman for the Southern Health and Social Care Trust said each adoption case is treated "on a case-by-case basis".

“Each trust supports those living in their own area to access records," she said.

“There are a number of options for those seeking birth information or access to adoption records to consider and the Department of Health has issued guidance.

“We understand that searching and tracing birth records can be a stressful experience and the social work team will always endeavour to support enquirers through this process.

“We encourage anyone with difficulties in accessing adoption records to please contact the Southern Trust adoption team, who will support or direct to colleagues in another Trust as required.”

A spokeswoman from the Department of Health said that, under a law introduced in 2022, all organisations holding records on Magdalene Laundries, mother and baby homes and workhouses between 1922 and 1995 must preserve them.

“These requirements apply equally to HSC (health and social care) trusts, voluntary adoption agencies and other organisations which may hold relevant historical documents,” she said.

She added: “The Department is clear that historical adoption case records should not be destroyed but should be maintained beyond the 75-year timescale set out in the 1989 Regulations in accordance with the requirements of the 2022 Act.”