Book Recommendation

Scottish PEN members might like to check out the recent New Island Books release,

Banished Babies The Secret Story of Ireland’s Baby Export Business –Updated and Expanded Edition

This is the updated version of RTE (Raidió Teilifís Éireann) investigative journalist Mike Milotte's book, first published in the 1990s, about overseas adoptions of Irish babies born in Irish mother-baby homes and effectively sold through schemes run by the Irish state and Catholic church. The first edition followed Milotte's RTE-tv exposé which broke the story to a nation and world that didn't want to believe it. Today the breadth and effects of these schemes, and of efforts to understand them and compensate those born into or had their lives variously changed by them, is clearer. Banished Babies is an essential resource for anyone trying to understand how something like this could/did happen and continues to affect victims round the world.

You can read a review of the book in  The Irish Times here

Elizabeth Marriott