Writing a play based on painful personal experience can be a challenging business at the best of times: there is a discipline required, a boldness, a leap of faith in both the story and the telling of it.
In Caitriona Cunningham’s case, it also meant opening herself up to a whole new level of searing public scrutiny. But it was time; it was time to shed the shame of a name – the tainted name of the Marianvale mother and baby home in Newry where her daughter was born 44 years ago.
The Derry grandmother, now aged 64, has found it a cathartic experience to pen The Marian Hotel, a euphemism for the institution run by the Catholic Good Shepherd Sisters where babies were routinely taken without consent and put up for adoption.
A poignant story of manipulation and betrayal, of rejection and shame, of vulnerability and loss, the play is set in 1979 and is unflinching in portraying the brutality of a system that impacted the lives of hundreds of powerless young women until it closed its doors in 1984.
“It was difficult,” says Caitriona with understatement. “I had to get up from writing lots of times and just and make myself a cup of tea or else go for a walk. I would feel overwhelmed by the memories and the more I started to write, the more memories would come back.”
Produced by Derry-based theatre company Sole Purpose, the public performances coincide with consultation with survivors and others ahead of a full public inquiry into mother and baby homes across Northern Ireland.
“I have been working on this play since Covid - it all coming together just as the panel is gathering evidence for an inquiry has been purely coincidental, but it has made me very hopeful that others will come forward,” says Caitriona.
“There has been far too much shame attached to women who went through these homes for far too long. Until very recently, I didn’t tell anyone myself that my daughter was born in a mother and baby institution. I kept it a big secret for a large part of my life.”
Caitriona was 19 when she fell pregnant and – voluntarily – packed her bags and went to live at Marianvale for the duration of her pregnancy.
“I had no idea, really, what it would be like and neither did my parents,” she reveals. “I thought this was what you did in my situation and I really thought the place would help me.
“I thought it would be like a kind of retreat. My parents thought it would be OK because the church was running it. We were very naïve.
“The worst thing was that nobody talked about your pregnancy - except the Catholic social worker when she came in – and then it was all about adoption. I felt I had no power to speak up and say anything. The thing is, part of you believes that maybe they’re right… your self-esteem is on the floor.”
Caitriona says she realised what was happening when she was told that “I had nothing to offer a child because I was an unmarried mother and that the baby would be able to have two parents and that I should just ‘get on’ with my life”.
She remembers looking at the social worker and thinking “this woman has all the power, but even then I always thought that when I got to the hospital to have my baby, everything would change”.
Everything did change – but not the way Caitriona hoped. “It was a terrible experience,” she recalls. “I needed three pints of blood and was left on my own until the very last moments. I was anaemic afterwards and, mentally, I was on the floor.
“I got to see my baby for a few seconds, but they didn’t tell me what I had or anything. When I was being wheeled out, this lovely Asian doctor came over and stopped the trolley and said: ‘You’ve had a beautiful baby girl’.
“He showed more compassion in that one sentence than the rest of the staff put together. We found out afterwards that nurses were told not to talk to us. It was very obvious – they were chatting to other mothers but didn’t come near us unless they had to.”
Many women and children were never reunited and for some it is too late but my hope is that this play will keep discussions open and bring the curtain down on any lingering shame
— Caitriona Cunningham
She went back to Marianvale for a couple of weeks and then home to her parents’ house in Derry, physically weak, “probably with post-natal depression” and believing her daughter was “gone”.
Then, about three months later, a social worker called – one from the local health board and not the Catholic Church - and asked when last Caitriona had last seen her daughter and whethere she would like to see her again.
“Well, I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” says Caitriona. “I was in total shock, but I said ‘yes’, of course, and then she went out into the hall and phoned the other social worker who wanted my baby adopted. I could hear them arguing on the phone.
“Next thing, I was being driven to a foster home in another town and I met my daughter again. The next day we went, carrycot in the back of the car, and took her home. It was as simple as that. It was a miracle, really, and I know I was one of the lucky ones.”
The bond was strong and instant and life returned to a form of normality. Caitriona began to train as a nurse – she worked in the field of mental health nursing for 27 years before retiring. She met a supportive partner and had a son, making the family unit complete.
But guilt and regret over those lost early months with her daughter, Crionna (now aged 44), often resurfaces – “although,” she adds brightly, “my daughter tells me to ‘wise up’ because she had a happy childhood and, of course, remembers nothing about the first three months of her life.”
After retirement she got to follow a few dreams of her own and signed up for a ‘creative path’ course in the Playhouse in Derry, later acting in a group called ‘The Drama Queens’.
“Sole Purpose run theatre labs where people could bring a scene from something they had written and actors would act it out,” she explains. “I had acted in some of them myself, but then I thought I would bring my own scene, just to see what it would be like.
“So, I did that and Patricia Byrne [artistic director] read it and said she would read the whole play if I wrote it – no promises, but she would read it. So, it all went from there. I am a bit nervous for opening night, but I think the hard part is now over.
“I just hope that if there is anyone in the audience impacted by a mother and baby institution, that they will know they will be treated with compassion. Many women and children were never reunited and for some it is too late, but my hope is that this play will keep discussions open and bring the curtain down on any lingering shame.”
