Notes
Until alarmingly recently, the Catholic Church, acting in concert with the Irish state, operated a network of institutions for the concealment, punishment and exploitation of 'fallen women'. Mortality rates were high, and the discovery of a mass infant grave at the mother-and-baby home in Tuam made news all over the world. The Irish state commissioned investigations. But the workings of the institutions and of the culture that underpinned it - a shame-industrial complex - have long been cloaked in secrecy and silence. For countless people, a search for answers continues.
