Catherine Corless, a local historian from County Galway in the Republic of Ireland, discovered that hundreds of babies and young children had died in a home for unmarried pregnant women. It was run by Roman Catholic nuns in her hometown of Tuam, and these children had died of neglect and malnutrition, their deaths unrecorded, their bodies buried in unmarked graves. Disturbing findings have raised troubling questions about key institutions in Ireland. ’The Irish State and the Catholic Church created the most appalling misogynist state and they did so through the architecture of containment’, says solicitor Kevin Higgins. ’The whole point of these institutions was to hide and contain any sexual immorality from [Catholics]’, explains Maureen, a survivors’ supporter. Women did manual labour to atone for their sins, while their children were taken away and faced malnutrition, neglect and even adoption. One former resident says: ’I was deprived of a mother, and then they tried to deprive my children of a mother.’