My Name is Bridget

In 1946, twenty-six-year-old Bridget Dolan walked up the path to the front door of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Alone and pregnant, she was following in the footsteps of more than a century’s worth of lost souls. Bridget gave birth to a boy, John, who died at the home in a horrendous state of neglect less than two years later. Her second child was once again delivered into the care of the nuns and was taken from her, never to be seen or heard from again.

She would go on to marry a wonderful man and have a daughter Anna Corrigan, but it was only after Bridget’s death that Anna discovered she had two brothers her mother had never spoken about. Anna became compelled to try and uncover any information she could about her baby brothers. What followed was the explosive revelation that the remains of 796 babies were discovered in a septic tank on the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home. Anna was left to wonder, were her brothers among them?

Here, with Alison O’Reilly, she pieces together the erased chapter of the life of her mother Bridget Dolan and her forgotten sons.

In 2017, the remains of 796 babies were found in a septic tank on the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, a home run by nuns which took in orphans and unmarried mothers until it closed in 1961. Bridget Dolan gave birth to two boys there. Her daughter Anna puts on the record the life of Bridget and all the forgotten women and children of the home