Children of Shame

The Fate of 20th Century Irish Children Born Out of Wedlock

Tuam, a quiet town in the west of Ireland. Tuam, a name that traumatised the whole of Ireland in the spring of 2014, when an unimaginable story was revealed. A hidden mass grave containing the remains of some 800 children was discovered on the former grounds of a home for single mothers, a hell on earth where children died from ill treatment, and were shamefully buried in secret and forgotten. Up until the 1990s, dozens of these detention centres were run by religious orders, but the country is still reluctant to confront the ghosts of its past.

This film traces the journey of unmarried mothers and missing children. We meet John Rogers, one of the tens of thousands of ill-fated children born in ultra-catholic twentieth century Ireland, a child of shame, guilty of having being born out of the sacred born of matrimony. His mother, like many other young women, spent her life paying the price for giving birth to an illegitimate child, who was torn from her arms shortly after birth. This documentary investigates Ireland's painful recent history to give the 'children of shame' a voice.