“The good thing now is, these things are being taken seriously. It’s horrific when you listen to these ladies,” says Supt Reid. “You wouldn’t be a human being if you weren’t moved by something like this. The investigation also covers the workhouses known as Magdalene Laundries. The state and clergy on both sides were part of it all. Thousands of young women were sent to these homes down the decades. “If it wasn’t legal and people didn’t know their children were being moved around, it’s a form of human trafficking.” The type of allegations range from illegal adoption, rape and incest claims about babies being moved on, sold on,” says Superintendent Gary Reid. “The level of depravity that goes on, it never ceases to amaze me. The officer heading the new criminal investigation is still in shock at what he’s been told so far. I’m proud of my mummy, that she was able to get through life despite feeling such shame, carrying that until she was 74.”Īs these sisters now bravely speak out, Sunday Life can reveal only 29 victims of this scandal have come forward to police. “She was excluded from so much because of what? What was so shameful about having a baby, inviting another wee life into our world? From day one there was never any backwardness between us,” says Ann.Ĭara looks fondly at her sister. “I love her, I really love her. I had found her within six hours, had met her within 12.” “But from the moment I was told, ‘You have a sister’, I was like a Facebook detective of the world. I kept thinking, ‘Why couldn’t she tell me?’,’’ says a tearful Ann. I nursed mummy for the last months of her life and she died here with me in the house. The bombshell news came the day after she buried her mother. Maisie’s death in June 2020 saw this family secret blown wide open, with Cara finding out she had a big sister. “There were times I wanted to lift the phone to Cara and say, ‘I’m your sister’. I thought it was up to Maisie to tell them,’’ she explains.
“It wasn’t in my nature to go in and wreck a family. How did she manage to resist reaching out? As the saying goes, you get older, you get wiser.”Īnn knew she had a younger sister and later two brothers. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t have the conversation with her. “There were times I was angry, not at my mummy and daddy, but at Maisie. I had to ring her one time to find out what day I was born. And you know, children can be very cruel growing up, and they would say to me, ‘She’s not your real mother’. “I was brought up with two very loving people, mummy and daddy, as I would call them,” says Ann. Cara with a picture of her as a baby with her mother Maisie and granny ClareĪdopted by her mother’s first cousin Mary Bridget and husband Jimmy, they were up front with her about who she was from an early age.
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