A WOMAN'S poem about the cruel reality of Ireland's Mother and Baby Homes has gone viral on social media.
One of the darkest parts in Ireland's history has been thrust into the limelight once more after a Government vote last week led to the records being sealed for 30 years.
This, politicians say, is necessary to safeguard those who were born in or held in one of the Mother and Baby Homes-- opposition parties and survivors however, worry that they will be unable to access crucial information.
More than 2,000 Irish children were trafficked to the US over three decades (Image: Archive)A petition calling on the new bill to be repealed has already attracted over 160,000 signatures online, and the fury among Irish people is palpable.
One woman turned the anguish felt by survivors into a poem.
Maggie Crehan, who lives in the USA, shared her original poem on Twitter, and while it received a good response it did not go viral, possible due to her small following.
However, the poem was then shared on Facebook, and has since garnered thousands of likes, shares and comments as it resonated with people across the country and beyond.
My name is Maureen Monahan my age is 93,
I had a little baby that they never brought to me,
It might have been a...Posted by Liam Browne on Saturday, 24 October 2020
The heartbreaking poem can be found in full below.
My name is Maureen Monahan, my age is 93
I had a little baby that they never brought to me,
It might have been a daughter, it might have been a son,
I never got to see it so it could be either one.
If a boy I named you Paddy
If a girl I named you Clare
And yes you had a father,
His name is Jack O'Hare.
As for you old Mother Ireland.
How could you treat us so,
When we were young and pregnant and
Had nowhere else to go.
So farewell little Paddy,
Farewell little Clare,
If I'd known what might have happened
O'd have never left you there.
I'd have sold myself for pennies.
To sailors on the street,
But by God and all that's Holy.
You'd have had enough to eat.
800 little babies,
And children 8 or 9,
All starving in their little cots and
One of them was mine.
And when you drew your final breath,
In the workhouse cold and dank,.
They wrapped you in a shroud
And threw you in a septic tank.
You can follow the author, Maggie Crehan, on Twitter here.
