{"id":468411,"date":"2026-05-26T20:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/468411\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:51:19","slug":"irish-thalidomide-survivor-fears-mother-may-die-before-long-awaited-state-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/468411\/","title":{"rendered":"Irish thalidomide survivor fears mother may die before long-awaited State apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Irish thalidomide survivor whose mother turns 96 on Wednesday said she will be \u201cdevastated\u201d if a State apology<\/a> does not come while her mother is still alive.<\/p>\n

Sharon Clarken and her mother, Mary, have long called for an apology<\/a>, but despite recent progress, Ms Clarken remains worried about the timing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must admit I think I would be devastated, I would be really really upset if she dies before we get the apology,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Mary Clarken is in \u201cvery good spirits\u201d, according to her daughter, and enjoys daily crosswords, newspapers, and the TV programme The Chase.<\/p>\n

\u201cHer whole thing would be \u2018try and enjoy your life as much as you can, get out there and enjoy\u2019\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s why she just can\u2019t understand why they won\u2019t apologise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ms Clarken lives in Germany with her husband and children. She also spends three months at a time with her mother in Portlaoise, alternating care duties with her sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really would like the apology for my mother, for all those mothers,\u201d she told the Irish Examiner.<\/p>\n

Reflecting on the impact of thalidomide, she said: \u201cIt was a horrific thing to happen\u201d, adding that her mother had taken only one tablet containing thalidomide during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

The drug was sold as an over-the-counter medication in pharmacies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just one, I was very lucky,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> and T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> committed to an apology during a February meeting with the Irish Thalidomide Association, attended by Ms Clarken.<\/p>\n

Last week, Mr Martin told RT\u00c9: \u201cWe are making good progress, and we would like to see this brought to a conclusion this year,\u201d but he did not provide a date.<\/p>\n

Ms Clarken said: \u201cI find it hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cMammy has said it would be really good (to have an apology) but she also thinks the apology should be to us, the children. She\u2019d like to see an apology so we could get on with our lives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, she remains hopeful, saying Simon Harris had previously phoned her mother.<\/p>\n

Artist and thalidomide survivor Mary Duffy turned 65 on Sunday. In a video posted on her Instagram account, she offered the Government some \u201cpointers\u201d on what it should apologise for.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the daily grind of being in the public gaze,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m amazed the way I attract attention everywhere I go, I\u2019m hyper-visible yet frequently I have my opinions ignored in conversations and especially where decisions are made that affect me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thalidomide, manufactured by a company now called Gr\u00fcnenthal, was sold in the 1950s and early 1960s to treat morning sickness during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

It caused severe and life-changing birth defects in thousands of babies worldwide, while many others died or were stillborn.<\/p>\n

More than 51,000 packets, sold under the brand name Softenon, were distributed in Ireland.<\/p>\n

The drug was withdrawn from sale worldwide in 1961, but no effective withdrawal notice was issued in Ireland, allowing it to remain available on rural pharmacy shelves.<\/p>\n

The youngest Irish survivor is Kerry farmer John Stack, who was born in January 1963.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Irish thalidomide survivor whose mother turns 96 on Wednesday said she will be \u201cdevastated\u201d if a State…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60,1843,70],"class_list":["post-468411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-micheal-martin","tag-simon-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}