Many moons ago, before everything went to pot, I made a plea and a pitch for a movie about Ireland that would not paint our past as utterly crap. Sadly, that has fallen on deaf ears. It has come to my attention that there is to be another film on how Ireland was awful, especially the nuns, who conveniently enough are too dead to defend themselves.

Wandering around the RTE website for some unknown reason on Sunday I found this. “Production has begun on the film The Lost Children of Tuam, the story of local historian Catherine Corless and her research into the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Research by Catherine Corless found that there were no burial records for almost 800 babies and infants who died at the home over a 36-year period.”

Sweet suffering Jehovah do they ever stop? This is essentially Evil Irish Nuns 4 after Philomena, the Magdalene laundries and the latest one, Small Things Like These. It will also feature the the beatification of Catherine Corless. In the Catholic Church you have to wait to be dead to be beatified. For Catherine Corless that is very much happening in the here and now.

We don’t know yet if it will rain on the day of premier but you can be sure that if it does it is because the babies who were buried at Tuam are crying in heaven.

The Lost Children of Tuam is directed by Frank Berry (Aisha, Michael Inside) and stars BAFTA and Olivier Award winner Monica Dolan (Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Appropriate Adult) as Catherline Corless.

Liam Neeson and Catherine Corless are among the producers of the film, which is presented by BBC Film and Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland in association with Coimisiún na Meán, RTÉ, Ireland’s Port Pictures, and the Dublin-based Element Pictures, among others. So both the Irish taxpayer and the UK taxpayer are funding this bad boy.

None of these institutions will be producing and funding “Ashling Murphy killed by a foreigner” or “Ashling Murphy’s boyfriend, defamed by the Irish media” or even Justice for Harvey, ignored by Simon Harris for years. That’s because the left control the culture, which is even more important than all the other institutions they control.

It will be interesting to find out who is going to be playing the bureaucrats at Galway County Council, because as the entire story and film hinges on the fact “that there were no burial records for almost 800 babies and infants who died at the home over a 36-year period” we must remind ourselves as it set out in the report the Tuam home was owned by Galway County Council. They as bureaucrats should have been responsible for burial records and they were certainly responsible for maintenance and improvements on the home which they were very slow to make.

As the report says “The key decisions relating to it were taken by the Galway Board of Health which was composed of members of Galway County Council. The County Homes and Home Assistance Committee (CHHAC), which was a sub-committee of the Board of Health that included non-council members, was also involved in decisions. The Board of Health and the CHHAC held a number of meetings in the Tuam home. There is evidence that they visited it on several occasions. Local authority records mention a visiting committee but the Commission does not have further information about this.” (15.13)

The status of the Tuam home was ‘irregular.’ The irregularity arose because Tuam was owned by the local authority but the staff (the nuns) were not directly employed by the local authority. (at 15.16).

“The department recommended that Tuam should close and then be handed over to the Sisters of Bon Secours and re-opened as an extern institution, similar to the Sacred Heart homes.” In other words the government wanted to hand the whole thing over lock, stock and barrel to the nuns (who would be later defamed after they died).

There was some back and forth between the nuns and the state on the legal status of the home.

Now pay attention to the next part which I will quote in full, at 15.16 of the report.

“It appears that the Sisters refused to sign this agreement until Galway County Council agreed to carry out extensive improvements and install central heating. In March 1951, Galway County Council told the Department of Health that it was unreasonable of the Sisters to expect this. However a Department of Health official informed the council that it was his opinion that Tuam was vested in the Galway public assistance authority. Therefore, its maintenance and repair was the responsibility of Galway County Council. He pointed out that if the Sisters of Bon Secours decided to discontinue their work, the public assistance authority would have to maintain and operate the home. He made it clear that the public assistance authority had no option but to carry out the repairs and install central heating if they wished Tuam to continue in operation. The department did have the power to order the council to carry out these repairs (see Chapter 1) but the Commission has not seen any evidence that it considered using this power.”

So, I do expect feminist RTE/BBC to go big on this one. On the one side you have those uppity nuns, taking care of pregnant mothers and their babies demanding central heating of all things for these women! Central heating, who do these women think they are? And on the other hand, the men of Galway County Council (and they will have been men) saying no can do ladies. Let the babies freeze to death.

It seems the council only caved because they made the very ruthless calculation that if they didn’t heat the home for the mothers and their infants then the nuns would refuse to run the place and it would fall back into their hands, and they can’t be doing with that.

Things didn’t really improve. At 15.38 we are told:

“The report of the visit by Department of Health officials to Tuam in November 1959 was damning about conditions there: A visit to the institution is the only way one can get an accurate impression of this poorly maintained, uncomfortable, badly heated and totally unsuitable building in which upwards of 140 children ranging from infancy to six years are accommodated … Throughout the years since the adoption of the building for its present purpose maintenance appears to have been minimal. 15.39 The report noted that the only money provided to Tuam was via a capitation rate; there was no allowance for maintenance or building costs.”

Anyway, really sorry to bog you down there with the facts and the reality of the situation. I have to, as you sure as hell won’t be getting it from the ‘Lost Children of Tuam’ propaganda film in the making.

Producer Liam Neeson said he is “so honoured and proud” that the film is in production after “eight years of preparation”. He described the film as “a profound story of one woman’s relentless pursuit and dedication in uncovering the horrific truth of the events in Tuam that shocked our nation to its core and is still reverberating in every aspect of our society”.

“Events at Tuam.” I look forward to knowing who will play Sister Hortense then a nun at Tuam.

She is described as follows, at 15.138.” A former child resident wrote of her memories of the Sisters of Bon Secours in 2002. She described them as ‘the kindest and dearest nuns I had the privleg (sic) of knowing’. ‘I am shocked and appalled at the people who falsely accuse the Bon Secours nuns of abusing the children in their care’. She said that she was well-fed, clothed and kept warm in the winter by the Sisters. The children learned how to sing and step-dance with the nuns and staged plays at Christmas time. ‘We had a good instructor and entertained priests, nuns and high class people of Tuam. We lacked nothing’. She cried when she was boarded out, aged seven but soon grew to love her foster family. Sister Hortense sent a gift every Christmas to her and to other boarded out children. She described Sister Hortense as having ‘a heart of gold.”

Sister H was run off her feet running that home. She was relentless in her pursuit of making things better for the mothers and children. It was Sister H who asked the local authority to install electric lights and had to deal with the removal of a burst water tank. Also Sister H didn’t like to foster children out (a frequent practice) to families who already had children as she knew they would only be used to work.

Another witness said of Sister H “Sister Hortense would go to Dublin in the sales, Arnotts and Clerys, and order stuff that would be sent down by rail. We got blankets from Foxford in Co Mayo.” A woman who had been born in the Tuam home in the mid-1930s and who lived there until she was 18 told Tuam Gardaí said “that Sister Hortense loved children and helped out with them.”

I am sure Liam Neeson has a few actresses in mind to play the nun with a heart of gold, loved the children, was relentless in her pursuit of better conditions for the women and children and dedicated to their care.