One last thing, of course, is that this book isn’t finished. I don’t really agree with this sort of thing, but this book probably should be mandatory reading in Ireland. At the centre of the narrative however is the amazing story of Bridget’s daughter, Anna Corrigan, and her fight to get justice for her family and those linked to what happened at Tuam. Also, at issue are the whereabouts of a number of missing women/ mothers who had the misfortune to end up in Tuam. These include the illegal trafficking of babies to the United States for money/ profit by the Catholic Church. Is this our Ireland, really? Full credit to journalist Alison O’Reilly for her stellar work in bringing out into the open most of the many issues that are linked in with what happened in Tuam. Yes, you read that right, ‘dumped in a septic tank’! Extraordinary, unbelievable. It is centrally about one woman’s story which is directly tied to the whereabouts of 796 unaccounted for babies and children who are presumed to been dumped (by the Bon Secours Order of Nuns) into a septic tank on the site of the old Tuam Mother and Baby home in Galway. Here, with Alison O’Reilly, she pieces together the erased chapter of the life of her mother Bridget Dolan and her forgotten sons.It is hard do this book justice in a very short review. Anna was left to wonder, were her brothers among them? What followed was the explosive revelation that the remains of 796 babies were discovered in a septic tank on the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Anna became compelled to try and uncover any information she could about her baby brothers. She would go on to marry a wonderful man and have a daughter Anna Corrigan, but it was only after Bridget’s death that Anna discovered she had two brothers her mother had never spoken about. Her second child was once again delivered into the care of the nuns and was taken from her, never to be seen or heard from again.

Bridget gave birth to a boy, John, who died at the home in a horrendous state of neglect less than two years later.

Alone and pregnant, she was following in the footsteps of more than a century’s worth of lost souls. In 1946, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Dolan walked up the path to the front door of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

My Name Is Bridget by Alison O'Reilly