Mother and baby home compensation cut off ‘insulting’

Mark was born in Newry in Northern Ireland, where his birth mother Kathleen McGuire had been sent to the Marianvale mother and baby home.

Kathleen was among the women and girls who spent time in what were known as Magdalene Laundries, made to do unpaid labour, such as washing clothes.

Mark explained: “She was a wee girl from Derry, who did nothing wrong.

“She became pregnant, and was sent off to be punished, for this mortal sin she had committed.”

Mark was adopted from a nursery in County Donegal, in the Republic.

Until the 1990s, there were checkpoints on the land frontier.

“Babies were being moved across the border, at a time when you couldn’t take shoes or butter across the border,” Mark said.

“It wasn’t just nuns and priests who knew what was going on. You had social workers, healthcare staff, nurses, who were all complicit in what happened to the girls.”