Children’s rights activist Christina Noble has spoken for the first time about her son Thomas who was taken from her when she was in St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on the Navan Road in Dublin.
Saint Patrick’s was one of the largest mother and baby homes in terms of numbers and was designated a special institution exclusively for single mothers.
The founder of the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation said she has never spoken publicly about her son being taken away from here until now.
Ms Noble was speaking at the launch of My Name Is Bridget; The Untold Story of Bridget Dolan and the Tuam Mother and Baby Home by journalist Alison O’Reilly.
Minister for Children Katherine Zappone is to bring proposals to Cabinet about the prospects of identifying babies in a mass grave in a former religious-run institution in Tuam,
“I loved Thomas. He was gorgeous. I have never spoken publicly about Thomas because of the pain.The unbearable pain,” Ms Noble said.
“I still never found Thomas, I was told that they had sent him to America and I don’t know if they have or they haven’t,” she said.
“I tried to find papers about him but I never found out where he went. In my last moment with Thomas, there was a nun there. I went up for his next feed and he was gone. I asked a nun there where Thomas was and she told me he has gone to a good Catholic home,” she said.
Author Alison O’Reilly dedicated the book to the memory of all the children who died in the care of the State and the Tuam babies.
“Unfortunately there are things that are happening in the child protection system today that are still not right and I don’t believe the voice of the child is being heard,” she said.
Anna Corrigan of the Tuam Babies Family Group, which represents families with relatives in the grave and survivors from the home, said she wanted justice for survivors. “If we get Tuam right, everything else will follow,” she said.
“We as a group need truth, justice, accountability, prosecution and restitution is what we as a group need. Taking some money and throwing it at us is not good enough,” she said.