Vocal Voices

Wednesday BBC2 9pm

When Martin Sixsmith wrote The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, it inspired 2013's Bafta-winning movie Philomena, and generated fresh interest in the story of the woman who was forced by the Catholic Church to give up her son Anthony for adoption. In this film, Martin investigates the Irish Catholic Church's role in a trade that saw thousands of `illegitimate' children taken from their mothers and sent abroad. In Ireland and America, he hears the touching stories of lives that were changed for ever. He also discovers some of the tragic consequences that occurred when prospective parents were not properly vetted, and witnesses the struggle of a mother and child separated by continents who hope to find each other before time runs out.

Thought some of you might like to watch this...I will be.

I was at the silent movie night so recorded it.

I've just sat down to warch it.

A friend of my mums was a "fallen woman" packed off to the nuns to "rid her of her shame". She has never found her son, despite years and years of looking. She thinks he probably went to America.

So very sad. Particularly Mary who was abused by her adoptive dad.

And sadly i know from recent experience it still happens today - the Americans really shoukd have more stringent vetting processes for prospective adopters.

I just can't watch I read a book years ago called Empty Cradles about the children who were shipped to Australia from childrens' homes here - many of them were told their parents were dead or didn't want them, which in many cases was untrue so they were basically stolen

That book haunted me for ages, it was so upsetting

Debih I agree about the States, it seems you can buy absolutely anything there if you have the money

I just caught the last half of the program. Just dreadful

One of Lesley Pearce's books is based on that book Kaz.

Wouldn't be able to read it Shell

Nope, nor me Kaz, don't see the point putting myself through it.
I know it happened and is an absolute tragedy, but knowing is enough.

I watched this programme with such jumbled up feelings....... I think I've said before that my Dad acted for an American millionaire who adopted eight children here, although I'm not sure if Dad was acting for him when he would have adopted them in the 1950s, I suspect not, I really do feel he came along later. The week the programme was on I read a book called "Suffer the little children" about the appalling treatment of children in Irish industrial schools and orphanages (although in fairness this was not confined to Ireland) and how the Church controlled the State in so many ways. It beggars belief that so many of the nuns (and Christian brothers - there's an oxymoron - in the industial schools) seemed to have no compassion and were so cruel - it truly was a different world and I was upset and horrified that these things were happening as I was growing up in my safe and secure home, such terrible stories have been coming out for so many years now. My parents employed three consecutive live-in girls up to my late teens, all of whom came from a particular mother and baby home, and I wonder what happened their babies

Most of the children who were adopted by the American man have had troubles in their lives, although I think quite a few of them managed to trace their mothers. However, one thing that does strike me is nobody ever tells the stories of the adoptions that work out well, but I suppose that doesn't make for good television. Surely some of them must have gone to good homes, where their adoptive parents gave them the life they deserved. The Catholic Church has an awful lot to answer for.