The story of a baby traffic organized by nuns, sanctioned by an archbishop, administered by civil servants and approved by politicians - all of whose main concern was secrecy. Mike Milotte's damning expose of Church-State collusion in banishing thousands of vulnerable 'illegitimate' children from Ireland in the 1950s and 60s

Dublin, summer 1980; Kate Bush is on the radio, Nadia Comaneci is cleaning up at the Olympics and in one house by the Liffey, a spiky but sensitive ten-year-old girl is minding her troubled ma and her two brothers. But when a tragedy splits the family apart, the girl realizes that the only person she can depend on is herself.

MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of most 800 babies in the ‘Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised nation, and lead to a Commission of Inquiry. In The Adoption Machine, Paul Jude Redmond, Chairperson of the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors, who himself was born in the Castlepollard Home, candidly reveals the shocking history of one of the worst abuses of Church power since the foundation of the Irish State. From Bessboro, Castlepollard, and Sean Ross Abbey to St. Patrick’s and Tuam, a dark shadow was cast by the collusion between Church and State in the systematic repression of women and the wilful neglect of illegitimate babies, resulting in the deaths of thousands. It was Paul’s exhaustive research that widened the global media’s attention to all the homes and revealed Tuam as just the tip of the iceberg of the horrors that lay beneath. He further reveals the vast profits generated by selling babies to wealthy adoptive parents, and details how infants were volunteered to a pharmaceutical company for drug trials without the consent of their natural mothers. Interwoven throughout is Paul’s poignant and deeply personal journey of discovery as he attempts to find his own natural mother. The Adoption Machine exposes this dark history of Ireland’s shameful and secret past, and the efforts to bring it into the light. It is a history from which there is no turning away.

Ever wondered what it's like to be adopted? This anthology begins with personal accounts and then shifts to a bird's eye view on adoption from domestic, intercountry and transracial adoptees who are now adoptee rights activists. Along with adopted people, this collection also includes the voices of mothers and a father from the Baby Scoop Era, a modern-day mother who almost lost her child to adoption, and ends with the experience of an adoption investigator from Against Child Trafficking. These stories are usually abandoned by the very industry that professes to work for the "best interest of children," "child protection," and for families. However, according to adopted people who were scattered across nations as children, these represent typical human rights issues that have been ignored for too long. For many years, adopted people have just dealt with such matters alone, not knowing that all of us—as a community—have a great deal in common.

The Sunday Times and Irish Times bestseller, as featured in the Sunday Independent 'You're all fallen women. You've sowed the seed of Satan. You are nothing.' Mary Creighton was just 15 when she found herself pregnant out of wedlock, in 1960s Ireland. She dreamed of a happy life with her child, but that was shattered when she was sent away to Castlepollard - a home for mothers and their unborn babies. Stripped of their clothes and forced into gruelling work whilst pregnant, those who survived childbirth were made to force-feed their children for adoption into wealthy families. Babies were ripped out of their mother's hands, but Mary refused to let that happen to her. She managed to escape only to later lose her beautiful daughter to social services and the Sacred Heart nuns, who always managed to catch up with her. After spending time in an infamous Magdalene Laundry, and having another two children snatched away, Mary sought to find her lost children, and demand answers for the atrocities committed supposedly in God's name. This is a haunting account of a mother's worst nightmare, as Mary continues to fight for justice for the mothers who suffered and the babies of Castlepollard: hundreds of which died and are still buried in the grounds today.

Senior RTE current affairs reporter Mike Milotte, who began to unravel the story in a TV documentary last year, has now gained access to hundreds of confidential files for Banished Babies. Blending personal stories into his account, Milotte reveals how the state colluded with Church agencies to facilitate the export of 'illegitimate' children, and how a black market existed in which Irish babies changed hands beyond the fringes of the official 'export scheme'. In this hard-hitting book, Mike Milotte explains in vivid detail how thousands of babies came to be exiled.

Remaking Social Work with Children and Families provides a sustained examination of the 'modernisation' of this area of social care. It analyses some of the key themes introduced by the administrations of John Major and Tony Blair and provides a critical exploration of contemporary policy initiatives and issues. These include: · the Looking After Children (LAC) materials · The Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and Their Families · 'working together' to protect children · the mainstream approach to 'race' and ethnicity in social work · the implications for social work of the emergence of 'personal advisers', mentors and related professionals. The author argues that political and ideological factors need to be taken into account in order to understand the dominant discourses and evolving practices of social work with children. Potential fixation with ensuring that young people are able to 'fit' into their allotted roles in a market economy and an overarching concern about children and criminality have been crucial in this respect. He concludes that while social workers and educators should be prepared to embrace change, they need to be critical agents in the process of change, recognising the ever present need to promote and foster democracy within the sphere of social welfare. This timely book will be helpful to all students, educators and social care professionals who are seeking to develop their theoretical and practical understanding of a changing profession.

This book, which updates and expands the third edition published by Springer in 2015, explains, compares and evaluates the social and legal functions of adoption within a range of selected jurisdictions and on an international basis. From the standpoint of the development of adoption in England & Wales, and the changes currently taking place there, it considers the process as it has evolved in other countries. It also identifies themes of commonality and difference in the experience of adoption in a common law context, comparing and contrasting this with the experience under civil law and in Islamic countries and with that of indigenous people. This book includes new chapters examining adoption in Russia, Korea and Romania. Further, it uses the international conventions and the associated ECtHR case law to benchmark developments in national law, policy and practice and to facilitate a cross-cultural comparative analysis.

"Adoption can create both a fundamental sense of hope and a profound sense of uncertainty, loss and grief. This book sets out the reality and detail of these issues in an inspiring and detailed way. We need to explore, reflect and learn from all that it tells us." - Dr John Simmonds OBE, CoramBAAF, UK "This book helps to fill some gaps in research about the longer-term outcomes of children adopted from out-of-home care. It provides important insights about the value and challenges of open adoption." - Professor Judy Cashmore, University of Sydney, Australia This Open Access book presents unique evidence from the first comprehensive study of the outcomes of open adoption from care in Australia. It contributes to the international debate concerning the advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face post adoption contact with birth families. The chapters assess whether adoption provides a better chance of permanence and more positive outcomes than long-term foster care for abused and neglected children in care who cannot safely return to their birth families. They also explore whether open adoption can avoid some of the detrimental consequences of past policies in which adoption was shrouded in secrecy and children frequently grew up with a conflicted sense of identity. The book will appeal to policy makers, practitioners and students of social policy, social work, the law, psychology and psychiatry. It should also be of interest to adult adoptees and adoptive parents, whose experiences it reflects. Harriet Ward is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Rees Centre, University of Oxford and Emeritus Professor of Child and Family Research at Loughborough University, UK. Lynne Moggach was Executive Specialist of Adoption at Barnardos Australia until she retired in 2019. Susan Tregeagle was Senior Manager of Research and Advocacy at Barnardos Australia and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney until she retired in 2019. Helen Trivedi is a Research Assistant at the Rees Centre, University of Oxford, UK.

A radical new perspective revealing the truth behind the making of modern Ireland from economic rebirth to entering the EEC.