Woman's Hour - Lavinia Greenlaw, Lindsay Duncan, the Irish mother and baby homes scandal

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

The names of Jeffrey Epstein's associates are likely to be published today, after a judge in the US ordered the release of court documents. Epstein took his own life after he was accussed of sexually abusing and trafficking underage girls. Names connected to him have previously been anonymised as John or Jane Doe; but now around 170 people, mostly men, will have their association with the former financier made public. Joan Smith, journalist and author, and Georgina Calvert-Lee, an equality lawyer at Bellevue Law, tell Emma Barnett what the list will mean.Lavinia Greenlaw is one of the country's leading poets and has now published a selected edition of her work, covering three decades of writing. She tells Emma about her new role as poetry editor at Faber, the first woman to hold the position. She is now the custodian of a back catalogue that includes TS Eliot, Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, and the gatekeeper for aspiring poets of the next generation.It is ten years since journalist Alison O’Reilly revealed that up to 796 babies were buried in a mass, unmarked grave in the grounds of a former mother and baby home in Galway in Ireland. The Irish government has promised compensation but none has been paid out. Is this now about to change? Alison joins Emma to discuss the latest developments.And how far would you go to help a friend? In Lindsay Duncan's new drama, Truelove, on Channel 4, a drunken reunion at a funeral leads a group of friends to make a pact: they will support each other in assisted dying rather than let a friend suffer alone. Lindsay tells Emma how a thriller starring a cast in their 70s and 80s is turning the police procedural on its head.Producer: Hannah Sander Presenter: Emma Barnett

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. My first of 2024 and it feels good to say the year aloud because I have to say since leaving school I've always felt slightly bereft that I don't write the date down anywhere for some time so it doesn't feel official that the year has changed plus we're coming out of that fog that no man's land that personally I can't stand between Christmas and New Year and goes rather stale on me so it's good to feel like we are starting again and to be with you this

morning. In my case a proper bra is back on hand cleaned out nearly, and a new notebook on the go. So let me ask you this, if you dare to share, care to share, what makes you feel like you are back at it? I'm not asking for resolutions. I'm not asking for predictions. But what makes you feel a little bit like you're back in the swing of things? I think we can all help each other with that this morning. The number you need is 84844. That's the number to text me here. Text will be charged at your standard rate. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website or send a WhatsApp message or voice notes using the number

03700 100 444. Just watch those data charges. On today's programme, let me tell you a bit about that. We have the poet Lavinia Greenlaw who will be taking us to new places with her words and making the case for poetry, I imagine, in 2024. There you go, I've said it again that year, it's becoming more official in my mind. As we reach 10 years since Ireland's mother and baby home scandal was revealed, I'll be joined by the journalist who broke the story as negotiations to pay reparations to survivors potentially enter a new phase. And the award winning actor, Lindsay Duncan, will be here to talk about her new drama on Channel 4, in which all of the main characters are over 70 and engaged in a dark pact. All that to come. But first, the start of a new year that certain men, and some very high profile indeed, and women, will not be wanting. As today, the names of more than 170 associates of the convicted

sex offender Jeffrey Epstein could be made public after a ruling from a US judge. The published list could expose or confirm the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier that until now have only been known as John and Jane Doe's in court papers. Jeffrey Epstein was indicted in 2019 on federal charges of operating a sex trafficking ring in which he allegedly sexually abused dozens of underage girls. The multimillionaire died by suicide in jail while awaiting trial. Anyone on this list, which as I say may be revealed today, until yesterday, they had until yesterday to appeal to have their name removed. This is nearly nine years after Virginia Dufresne filed a single defamation claim against Ghislaine Maxwell,

the former British socialite and of course the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell in 2015. She's serving a 20-year prison term for crimes she committed with Jeffrey Epstein. While that lawsuit was settled in 2017, it left the names of scores of Epstein associates under a court-ordered seal. An association with Jeffrey Epstein can prove costly or even career-ending, as we've seen. The bank J.P. Morgans paid a multi-million sum to settle such cases in the US Virgin Islands. Prince Andrew paid a large sum to settle his case with Virginia Dufresne

and the former head of Barclays, Jess Staley, has been banned from holding any senior position in the City of London after he was found to have misled regulators over his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. I'm joined now by Joan Smith, the journalist and author. I'll come to her shortly. But first, by Georgina Calvert-Lee at Bellevue Law, an equality lawyer who specialises in feminist issues.

Good morning, Georgina. Good morning, Emma. Good to be on. It's good to talk to you. And we've spoken before about cases linked here to this, but what we haven't talked about is the revealing potentially of such names. I've tried to explain it, but tell us a bit more about how this has come about and why this has come about legally. Well, the names were included in a whole series. I mean, I think hundreds of documents that were filed with motions relating to the defamation lawsuit that you mentioned.

Now, that was filed back in 2015, no, 2017, I think, and against Ghislaine Maxwell and was settled. No, it was filed in 2015, settled in 2017. And once it's settled, parties often think that part of the settlement will involve complete confidentiality. But the problem with that especially in America is that once a motion is filed within a lawsuit in this case I believe Ghislaine Maxwell was trying to have the the whole complaint dismissed and in order to avoid having her complaint dismissed Virginia Jeffrey and her lawyers will have filed lots of papers to explain why the defamation lawsuit was valid,

why statements made were untrue. And that will involve a whole load of evidence, which is filed in court. And the convenient thing about the American legal system, at least in federal court, is that once you file papers in court, they're in the public domain. You can actually go onto a website and find them. And because of that, where a lot of third parties are named in these pleadings or in evidence, there can be a motion made to seal the documents, to seal maybe not the entire document, but at least the names of those individuals who are sort of inadvertently caught up in a lawsuit. And they're given these monikers, John Doe or Jane Doe, one, two, three, four. And once the case was settled, you might have thought, well, then all of these documents

will just sort of go away, be lost in the annals of history. But actually, they're not necessarily. And if another party, I think in this case, the Miami Herald was the media outlet who wanted access to the files, makes a motion to see these documents. Then the question arises, well, can they see the documents at all? Can they see also the names of those other individuals that might have been hidden behind these anonymised monikers. And so that is what the court has been grappling with all this time and releasing, I think, bit by bit, some documents and deciding whether to keep these names hidden or not. So, I mean, you've done a good job there, thank you,

of trying to explain how this has come to be and why it is allowed. Is it right that we should hear names like this? Not in much context, potentially, and also, you know, could be in scenarios which are fine and could be in scenarios which are not fine. The problem is, how will we know? Well, the names come from a whole range of different types of people. So there are some people who may have been, who are allegedly involved in the wrongdoing itself. There are others who may just be very tangentially involved. There may be some names disclosed who are other victims. And so the judge will treat those quite differently. So the names of other victims

will probably remain sealed. Because if you've made an allegation of sexual misconduct, it cannot be reported, at least in England, it can't be reported. And I should think there will be similar privacy considerations in New York. If you're associated because you may be associated with wrongdoing. Well, there is a general principle in common law jurisdictions, and that would be the UK and the US, including New York, that a principle of open justice, that people should be law abiding, and so they don't need to live in the shadows. And if a lawsuit is being brought, then you need to shine the light of justice on it, and that will usually allow the truth to come out better than if you

allow some things to be sealed so this is general principle of open justice which I think is a good thing but because it does if I may do you think we will get the context on on how these names come forward I understand what you were saying about those whose names will remain sealed to protect them but if your name comes up in this and you're a very high profile individual, there's some very high profile men's names in particular that have been mooted. We're not going to name anybody here on Women's Hour before this list. But if your name does come up, will there be context? There should be context because I don't imagine it to be a list of names.

Although, I mean, the judgment is done in a tabular form. There's a table, John Doe 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. But it should come out as a list. It's actually the documents which are being sought. And so any name that comes out will be revealed with the document itself in which it's revealed. And so there will be context. And if the names are reported without that context, well, there's the danger. And if they're misreported, if the context is misrepresented, then there's the danger of a new defamation claim. And the person who's named,

but with a misrepresented context, would potentially have a right to bring their own defamation lawsuit. Georgina, thank you for that. Not an easy task trying to explain a different country, the law and this particular case, which has been going on for some time. Joan Smith, journalist and author. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks for being with us. I suppose the question more to you is one of a cultural one, really, and as someone who has looked at feminism for many years, studied it, written about it, and how we fit together as a society. I suppose I wanted to ask, if these names are revealed, how we could begin to process them? Well, I think that obviously there is the caveat. We don't know the context yet. But

I think what it feels, this case feels very much to me like unfinished business, that for years and years, there were powerful men, some of them politically important, some of them very wealthy. You know, we know some of the names. For years, they were happy to associate with a man who obviously was committing a large number of offences against really quite young girls, young teenagers. And that it raises questions about whether there's a culture of impunity for men like that, whether their connections, the benefits from associating with them are so great that people were prepared to turn a blind eye, or whether they genuinely didn't notice what was going on. So I think it feels like this is yet another episode in in a in

a and it gives you a kind of insight into the private lives of very famous and powerful men and how they behave when they think they're not under scrutiny do you think it does give insight though and do you think it's helpful as a window because there will be some who say well we you know we're not going to necessarily know everything that's gone on here. And it might, you know, especially as we're starting a new year, it might give you a worse view, a dimmer view and without the full picture as people sort of try to think about how we can perhaps come together a bit more. Well, I think it raises questions about private behaviour. And there's always been that public-private kind of divide where men will say things and behave in certain ways in public and then behave differently in private. whether individuals have moral responsibility. So all of these men who are very happy to associate with Epstein, you know, to go to his island, to use his private jet and so on,

what did they see? Did they really not notice what was going on? My anxiety about it is that it will have very little effect because, you know, that culture of impunity continues to this day. And it feels to me like a case where a large number of people probably behave very very badly and will never be never be brought to account and i suppose how how do we deal with that as well joe you know that that's sort of uh a reality isn't it especially with news just flashing past you so quickly on your phone

and and not necessarily taking the time time to process it or learn anything necessarily? Well, what it should do is actually, it should be a wake-up call for men who want to be involved in politics and, you know, to be powerful and, you know, to have a very public role. It should be a reminder that, you know, the public, I think, does expect people's private behaviour and their public behaviour to have something in common. And the other thing about it is this is going back 20 odd years now, probably more. Some of these men are going to be quite

elderly towards the end of their careers. And, you know, you've mentioned one or two people who have suffered as a result. A lot of these, a lot of the men who are named today will actually be at a point in their careers where it won't have much effect on them. What it should do is have an effect on younger men who might find themselves in a similar position, being invited to dinners to stay with powerful men, and then having an anxiety about their behaviour. And it should actually create a situation where instead of just turning a blind eye to it, they say to themselves, hang on, what's going on here? I mean, you know, what's interesting about this is it took a newspaper investigation to bring all this out. And obviously, you know, I mean, Jeffrey Epstein was accused of sex trafficking. That's actually quite a big operation. And yet very few, in fact,

none of his associates ever contacted the criminal justice system, as far as we know. Are you going into 2024 optimistic, Joan? Can I ask you that? I am personally because I've just finished a book. Oh, there you go. But yes, the rest of it is all pretty grim, I'm afraid. No, no. I mean, it's good to get a reality check from you, Joan. And hear where your head is at. As many of our listeners are starting to

get in touch about what makes them feel like they're back at it. It sounds for you filing a book has been the thing, as you make us think about perhaps what this list may or may not do, as it may or may not be revealed today. But we wanted to spend some time trying to understand why it could come to light. Georgina Calvert-Lee helped us do that at Bellevue Law. Thank you for that, an equality lawyer, and Joan Smith, the journalist and author, who's just obviously filed her latest book and feeling some relief. On that, if I can,

Kate says, I've spent the last week tidying drawers and cupboards, collating paperwork, bank statements and are now sitting at a clear desk, ready for work. Kate, I love that you've been able to send a text though. You're not quite started fully, although we'll let you off for texting us here at Womans I'm very happy to hear from you. I've just played

paddling my group of retired geriatrics. Back to it. One of us usually pulls or twists something but we love it we persevere. I like that Messaging my class via our primary school's parent school app makes me feel a new year has truly started. Happy New Year Emma that's Sam in Boston

Lincolnshire, primary teacher. Happy New Year to you. That's Sam in Boston, Lincolnshire, primary teacher. Happy New Year to you. In Edinburgh, we are not back to normal. Scotland has two bank holidays, presumably to recover from the New Year. And Katie sends that in.

Fair enough. And that's me reminded. I hope you get back to it tomorrow if that is the case for you. You might have been taking the whole week off. Maybe you do if you've had two days. Marion says,

I always begin the New Year with a trip to the sales and get myself fitted for new bras, adding matching pants, of course, so I can start the new year with an uplift. I always think the matching pants are a bit of a waste, personally. That might just be me. But I have also done the new bra thing. New upholstery. We need it, especially postnatally, let me tell you. Although I clean my teeth every day, obviously, it's only today I've gone back to doing so while standing on each leg for a minute on each side. Jane, yes, I need to do that. Emma, for me, it's back to my normal coffee time. 10am at the start of Women's Hour.

Good woman. Over the last couple of weeks, it's been lions and random times for everything. I know, Gemma, we need it. Talk about upholstery. We also need it for the day. Those tent poles. And starting the year with a new notebook

and the tranquility and peace of the office, a welcome change from the home filled with children's noise and house chores. No name on that, but amen to that. Keep your messages coming in. How do you get back to it? Tell me. Well, talking about writing, as we were just hearing from Joan, my next guest is one of the country's leading poets,

the author of six collections of poetry, three works of fiction. Lavinia Greenlaw has now published a new book covering three decades of her work, from her first poems written as a single mother to a recent collection exploring her father's dementia. She's also been named the new poetry editor at the publisher Faber, the first woman to hold that role, making her the gatekeeper for upcoming poets and the custodian of a back catalogue that includes some of our greatest writers, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes to name but a few, Lavinia Greenlaw. Good morning. Thank you for joining us today. Good morning.

And congratulations, I should say, on that role. Thank you very much. We'll come to that shortly. But for you, poetry, especially as we enter a new year, what role do you think it should have or could have in people's lives if perhaps it isn't there? Well, I think poetry arises out of tension and these are particularly tense times. And what we're seeing is that poets are at the foremost of artists responding to the kind of things we're facing and dealing with now. I mean, poetry is never generally mainstream in culture, but it's kind of arterial. It's always there and it persists and explicit aspects of language and helps us articulate things that otherwise we're finding difficult to express.

I mean, Audre Lorde wrote an essay new thought, but a very important one, that we somehow need new ways of thinking about things always. And that's what poetry can offer us. But it's striking, isn't it, that people turn to poetry in difficult times, a lot of the time, not always, happier times too, but because they're looking for perhaps a different way of expressing. Yes, I always remember reading about somebody whose child was killed accidentally in a drive-by shooting and he had never read or written a, and he sat down and wrote a poem. There's something innate in us about language, music, image, and the kind of noise language makes, the emotional noise a poem can make, that does something more for us and I think reaches beyond the specifics of any poem to connect with us at a much more universal level. That's what a good poem should do.

Why did you turn to it? I believe you grew up in a house of science. I did grow up, but also very luckily a house of books. But I think I turned to it because actually I found language really difficult. It was so overwhelming and runaway. And there were so many possibilities with what you could do with words. And I'd get myself in tangles. And for some reason, poetry, I don't know, I just had the wiring for it. I mean, I've been teaching writing for over 20 years.

And it always astonishes me that however profoundly the world changes, young people turn up still with the wiring for poetry. And I think I was one of those. I found the world a difficult place to be. I found I was sort of short-sighted, absent-minded, accident-prone. And I was interested in those difficulties and wanted to investigate them. I think poets are generally curious and investigative and also very precise. It's a mistake to think that poetry is vague and fuzzy.

It's just good at being precise about vague and fuzzy things. You talked recently, just keeping with your younger years, if I can, about the importance of music to girls. That was the title of your memoir, but punk in the word girl should sort of be in inverted commas. I wrote this book, it was published in 2007. And I had, so it feels a long time ago, but I was beginning to think about my adolescence and my attempts to be a girl. I was just, I mean, a girl as in I moved out of London to a village in Essex, went to the local comp, got really into disco, but was terrible at being a girl. And in that form, that sort of codified, hyper-feminine form. And then punk came along and my old tomboy self re-emerged and I loved the escape into being undefined and to have all the things that made me feel different and as if I couldn't fit in

being recast as virtues you know the fact that I was awkward and pale and a bit of a swat and quite anxious and liked wearing black and that sort of thing suddenly felt okay yeah music does create a space that perhaps where you are in your time and your life and where you're living doesn't uh in a very specific way and can come to you and and I think make you feel more at home than sometimes where you find yourself um I have mentioned your your book Selected Poems, looking back through your work. And your first collection, Night Photograph, was published in 1993. And I know you're going to read to us one of your poems, one of those poems from that time, which is called Love from a Foreign City. So I'm going to let you do that and then we'll talk about it afterwards, if that's OK.

Sure. Where was your head at with that? There is a lot going on there. There is. Well, I wrote that poem in my 20s. It's very odd. The thing about having a selected poem is you're suddenly confronted by your 20-something self. And you were a single mother at the time, is that right? I was, yes. And my daughter would have been four, I think, by the time I wrote that poem. And it's all, everything that happened in the poem happened. This is London, which is my city. I'm a born and bred Londoner. And it was realising that my own city was becoming strange to me.

You know, this was the mortar attack is the one on Downing Street which I heard in the flat and I mean it's you should never say everything in the poem is true because it doesn't mean it earns its place in the poem but everything is you know my mother did have a plumber who took the rat hole in her U-penned home for this museum and we everything everything there was typhoid in Finchley. But why did you, do you think at the time, what were you trying to say by putting that all together? Was it to capture, what are you trying to capture? I'm trying to talk about how we cannot take for granted where we are,

which is something we absolutely know much more about now, 30 years later, that I thought I knew my city. I thought I knew my world. And by increments, it was becoming strange to me. I mean, you know, I mentioned the A to Z, which is now completely obsolete. But this map, which actually just had sections marked under development, because things were changing so fast. And this is about trying to catch up with where you are, a feeling that's only accelerated in the profound changes of the last few decades. Although I have to say I am invigorated by the positive aspects of that, by being made to rethink my assumptions and my conditioning. So the idea of, I suppose, when you were doing that, you sound like as well, you may have also been disorientated in your life and perhaps your own identity. I don't want to read too much into that. But, you know, being a relatively new mother, doing that as well, trying to find your place, I suppose. Yeah, I mean, I was bringing up my child working and

writing poems in the middle of the night. But I was young and I had enough energy to do that. And I think that I found that having a child actually started me writing in a whole new way and not necessarily about having a child. It profoundly informed my writing because it kind of moved me aside in some interesting way and gave me a new perspective on myself as well as everything else. And I also think I just learned to use my time better because I had so little of it. Yes, highly efficient and highly efficiency comes from

from that I can definitely attest to that. When you're now looking for you talk about teaching and you're going to and you're in this role as the new poetry editor at the publisher Faber a great a great publisher of poetry what do you see with women coming through as poets? Well I haven't started yet. But I suppose from your teaching and the kind of, you know, ways women come to poetry. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the reasons I'm particularly excited about taking on this role now is I think we are seeing a time

in which emerging women writers, and I use the word emerging rather than young because, of course, women don't necessarily conform to the traditional trajectory of the artist where they start when they're young. They may have things that slow them down and start later. are people who can not only absolutely address the specific experience and world that they encounter, but also are highly individual and they are taking risks and being artistically and intellectually confident and therefore ambitious and rigorous in ways that are really interesting. So you have, there's a lovely sense in the way that young women no longer necessarily feel the need to dress alike that we did in our little gang. I think writers just are much more at ease in being their individual selves. And it's my job to actually make each of them more themselves.

Yes. And I suppose, as you say, poetry has never been mainstream, but finding space in the modern life for that, because a lot of people share it on social media, you know, and that, you know, that ability to share what you've then created as well. Yes, I think, I mean, the Insta poetry movement's really interesting because I think that there is an immediacy to it and the familiarity in its context, because it comes to find people, they don't have to go and find it,

that makes people engage with it very confidently. And my hope is that if you're reading that and you enjoy it and become, then you might want more and you might seek other poets. I mean, for example, the great poet Wendy Cope is completely all over TikTok

because people got hold of her poem, The Orange, and started making TikTok videos of it. And that's an incredibly good example of how a truly good poem, which is both immediate and deep, can kind of reach so widely. Do you have a poem that you turn to in particular, whether it's a start of a new year or a difficult time or something that you you find yourself going towards for those who perhaps also don't know where to start I think somebody like

Emily Dickinson who was writing in the 1850s but for example here's a really short poem by her and what that is saying is we can't know everything about love because we're not able to know everything about love. And that sort of sounds simple and obvious, but isn't. And I think what you should do is really go by your instincts and pick up a book that appeals to you and don't read it one page after another. Leave it about the place, flick through it and read what appeals to you and read it aloud. And don't worry about meaning, read it aloud because your body and the noise the poem makes will help you understand much more what experience the poem is activating in you or describing for you than sitting there and thinking, as you might at school,

if you have a bad teacher, what does this poem mean? I'm hoping we will hear the quiet hum of people reading poetry aloud now across the country. I think that's great advice though, to read it aloud, because I think a lot of people struggle, myself included,

when you first read something and the punctuation is slightly different to what you are used to, to get their head around that. But it's lovely that you shared that as well. Thank you for doing that. I think people knowing poetry by heart is, again, something that is not the norm anymore. Whereas I think lots of people still pride themselves on something they learned at school, don't they? Where they have remembered it. Yes, I mean, it was one of, my father was of that generation

that memorised poetry at school. And in the last few months of his dementia, it was almost the last thing to leave him. And I would read him the Jabberwocky or a poem like, you know, a poem like the Jabberwocky or something he knew from childhood. And he would join in little bits,

even though he could barely speak. It goes in deep wow yes and I think I've heard that from others and I think there'll be people who can relate to that so thank you for sharing that it's lovely to talk to you Lavinia Greenlaw good luck with the the new role sounds a very important and big role to do the custodian of some of that future talent and past and it's called Lavinia Greenlaw's Selected Poems. A selected edition of her poems is now out and the latest nonfiction book, Vast Extent, both out now. You are getting in touch about how you get back at it.

I get back at it when I get up at 6am and I go into my workshop for a couple of hours to make some silver jewellery before starting work on our small holding. Happy New Year. Christine says, I feel very virtuous after tiding and now I can't find anything. Hey-ho, back to normal.

Leslie in a very wet South Wales says, I share your feelings about the in-between time, that's between Christmas and New Year. For me, it's taking down all the decorations today and putting my home back to rights. Happy New Year. And Anne says, just hearing about poetry, this message just in, poetry unlocked me.

I have difficulty feeling my own emotions, my own humanness, and the poets found me. I think I wouldn't be here, would not be here but for them. I don't read poetry every day, but when it illuminates, it is astonishing. I even wrote some for a couple of years, a challenge. And another one here, as a teacher of primary school children,

I experienced children deemed non-academic responding to ideas in poems and comprehending concepts that pass them by in prose. I thought this may have been because of extraneous matters cleared out of the way and I'm so glad to hear this articulated here today. Well, we're happy to do that for you and thank you for sharing that. But 10 years ago, let me tell you about what my next guest did, because she broke the story of what became known as Ireland's mother and baby home scandal, exposing that Irish states and church run institutions subjected unmarried mothers and their children to illegal adoptions, human rights violations and systematic abuse. Alison O'Reilly is the journalist who first ran a story in 2014 in the Irish Mail on Sunday after a female historian contacted her post compiling historical documents which seemed to show hundreds of babies were buried in a mass unmarked grave

in the grounds of a former mother and baby home in Galway run by Catholic nuns. This led to a government commission in 2015 investigating 14 mother and baby home in Galway run by Catholic nuns. This led to a government commission in 2015 investigating 14 mother and baby homes, 10 of which run by Catholic orders. However, none of the survivors or their families have been compensated. Is that about to change? The Irish Times has recently reported that the Irish government will carry out a financial assessment of church assets worth hundreds of millions of euros in an attempt to break a deadlock in talks between the government and religious orders on reparations for mother and baby homes survivors. Alison O'Reilly, good morning. Good morning, thanks for having me.

Just as I mentioned there, the original story, but remind us of a bit more detail if you will yeah this was a story i wrote in may 2014 and um i had been covering fostering and adoptions and illegal adoptions for quite some time as a journalist and a recent story at that time had broken about the bethany babies which was the protestant mother and baby home here in Dublin. And a local professor, Niall Meehan, had uncovered 222 names for those babies. And he was unveiling a plaque in Jerome Cemetery here in Harrods Falls. And at that time, I'd interviewed one of the survivors there.

And I wrote a story about her when I received an email the following week from a woman from Dublin called Anna Corrigan. And she had just found out that her mother had given birth to two babies in the two mother and baby home, which is in Galway in the west of Ireland. And Anna had spent her whole life believing she was an only child. And just out of interest, she had researched her parents' lives and discovered that her mother, Bridget Dolan, had given birth to two babies prior to having been married to Anna's father. And the two babies appeared to have died. John Dolan died in the mother and baby home, whereas the other little fella, William Dolan, seems to have been marked as dead.

But there's no certification for his death and no original death certificate so that child appears to be missing and has been registered as missing and while Anna was doing that personal you know research of her family life another woman in Galway called Catherine Corliss was researching the two mother and baby home and it seemed that for 30 years locals in that small town outside Galway had been tending to this children's grave in the middle of a housing estate um and it appeared that there was a mother and baby home there at one point that ran from 1925 to 1961 and during that time 796 children had died and everybody was looking after this grave but nobody really knew who these children were so Catherine went about seeking the names the dates of births

and deaths and the causes of deaths for these young children and the two women came to me with their information obviously I have to check everything they're saying, have to look at surrounding cemeteries to see that perhaps maybe some families would have taken these babies home and buried them with their own family. But given that these mother and baby homes were supposedly in response to a crisis of women having babies outside of marriage,

it was highly unlikely that families were going to take home these children after they passed to bury them with the family so while the home was gone and knocked and it made room for a housing estate and the nuns moved out of the tomb they left 796 children behind and with further investigation we discovered then that the children unfortunately and horrifically were buried in septic tank and in may 2014 i exposed that story and because you obviously need the personal story to go with something on that scale and um it went on the front page

and 800 babies buried in a mass grave and sadly sadly, it got little or no traction here. And it wasn't until it was picked up by the international media that it exploded and became one of the biggest stories to come out of Ireland in the last decade. And it's a decade now. I mean, you know, just reflecting on that, as we are at the beginning of a new year, and that reality of none of the survivors or families being compensated,

where do you see this going now? And where is it up to from your knowledge, from your contacts? It's just so distressing, beyond distressing. A story so big that opened up all the other mother and baby homes across Ireland. There was over 100 in Ireland at the time so many people up to 68,000 people are believed to have passed through these homes but that's not including illegal adoptions people who were boarded out children who were used in vaccine trials children who were born in private homes private adoptions and since this expose it's been delay and delay we've had commissions we've had inquiries we've had illegal experts come in we've had all sorts of you know acts implemented into

law the redress scheme was was signed into law last year massive delays with that as well and still no compensation for anybody and the babies unfortunately remain in that septic tank to this day. They do? Yeah they do unfortunately they do and there have been so many meetings so many protests so many discussions in parliament so many experts examining this breaches of human rights catastrophic breaches of human rights and yet a significant quantity of human remains remain in a cesspit on the grounds of that former mother and baby home in Galway in the west of Ireland to this day and we seem to have needed legislation to excavate and exhume these children and i don't know why because this is done

all across the world um but unfortunately it's report after report and delay after delay and and and then can i get your reaction then around this idea of there potentially being um some kind of breakthrough but we we don't know. I should say we contacted the Irish government. No reply yet on that. But the idea that the Irish government will carry out a financial assessment of church assets.

What do you make of that? Well, I mean, look, they had a barrister assess this because this was a recommendation from a commission of inquiry that concluded in 2021 that people should be compensated. was 2021 they got financial and they got um expert advice and legal advice on who should pay this this is meant to be the biggest compensation scheme in

the history of the state state it's uh up to 68 000 survivors only 34 000 of them are believed to be eligible for a payment because unfortunately with this mother and baby institutional payment scheme it's been recommended and don't ask me why there's been so much arguments over this that people that were in the homes under six months wouldn't be affected despite all the medical science all across the world of the attachment theory it's been now decided that anyone in these homes under six months will not get a payment. And anybody who was boarded or fostered out won't get a payment. So there's been a lot of delays with the compensation because of these arguments. But it was signed into law last year. And then what happened was a trade union official, Sheila Noonan, has been appointed to have numerous negotiations and conversations with the religious orders who were involved in these homes.

But the state were the regulators and the church ran the home. So they were contracted to the state and the state were the ones supposed to be regulating and overseeing this. So the argument is it should be 50-50. The church was arguing, no, actually, we were working for you. So it's more of a moral payment more than anything. But the bond secures in underground, the tomb home have said that they will contribute, but nobody knows how much. Well, I have a feeling, Alison, sadly to say, we will talk again in the sense of

this doesn't look like it's going to be changing anytime soon from that. But we wanted to talk to you as the journalist who broke this, but also as it reaches the 10 year point in this from that extraordinary story and more to the point, extraordinary reality of those survivors. Thank you very much for talking to us and bringing us up to date and as I say I think we'll we'll talk again Alison O'Reilly there putting us in the picture at the start of a new year and you are getting in touch about how you get back to it whether it's I don't know after a holiday or as we are now at the start of a new year Beck says Christmas is packed away Emma I'm listening to Woman's Hour in my workroom sorting out my sewing supplies and planning what I'm going to make next happy new year happy new year to you Beck and a message here from Bibi who says just back from a woman's hour in my workroom, sorting out my sewing supplies and planning what I'm going to make next. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, Bec.

And a message here from Bibi who says, just back from an eight and a half mile run. Good for you. Beautiful Ennardale in Cumbria. Started off in moonshine. Perfect. First of many runs I'm looking forward to this coming year. Being 66 years old is no bar

to getting out for a brilliant run. Well, that's nearly the age of most of the cast of the next drama I'm about to talk about. Let me ask you a question, though, which is central to this drama on Channel 4. How far would you go to help out a friend? Well, the award-winning actor Lindsay Duncan's new drama with her colleagues, a group of older friends,

they're about to go as far as it's possible to go. Gathered at a funeral, perhaps maybe a bit drunk, they make a pact. If one of them falls terminally ill and faces the prospect of suffering a slow decline, the others will step in to give their friend a dignified death. But it's a drama that is also a black comedy. And once the wheels are set in motion, events spiral in slightly unexpected directions. Lindsay Duncan is starring in True Love on Channel 4. She's just walked into the studio. Good morning, Lindsay.

Good morning. Yeah, nearly the age of most of the cast are listening at 66. Is everybody, I think, over the age of 17? Oh, yes, yes. I mean, there are younger members of the cast, but we don't like to talk about them. No. You're playing Phil, a former police chief,

enjoying a good retirement, but a bit bored, I think it's safe to say. Definitely bored. She looks very glam. Sunglasses, sports car, listening to David Bowie when we meet her. What drew you to her? Basically that.

No, she is a fantastic character. She interests me because her work was obviously key to her, to who she is. She had a great deal of responsibility. She must have been, I suppose, you know, in her 20s, in the 70s, in the police force. And that would have been challenging for a woman. So she's tough. She's had a very varied career. And we discover that she's put a great deal of herself into her career, possibly to, you know, the loss to her personal life. Her parenting skills are not very well developed. She's been in a long and very supportive marriage. But she is at this point, she doesn't have a plan. There she is, you know, she's gone from a very intense working life. And now she's just treading water a bit. And she's in in she's in a marriage where perhaps they want different things and I think

that can happen you don't you don't necessarily talk about the future until the future arrives and you find yourself contemplating um nothing or things you don't necessarily want to do so the there are, many things about her which reflect, I think, lots of people's considerations when they go into retirement. Well, I don't have to even think about that, but it's interesting to contemplate it.

You're not showing any signs of retirement, it's safe to say. Let's listen to a. No, I'm not. Let's listen to a clip of the friends here. Could it be done? Could we not help each other when the time comes, make a more elegant exit? You're not still on this, are you?

Don't be so morbid. You'd need a really good pre-med. Get properly mellow. David could prescribe it. I wrote my last prescription a decade ago. But why not? Really? Because you never get away with it, that's why not. Old person dies, not exactly headline news.

People get away with it every day. I could take you now to the houses of people who got away with it. Oh, that was then. I mean, with respect. The forensics these days, it's moved on since got away with it. Oh, that was then. I mean, with respect, the forensics these days, it's moved on since your day, Phil. Oh, yes. The beautiful pathologist deduces the whole thing from a molecule. You make everything sound lovely in your voice, but they are talking about death and they are talking about a pact. And I suppose really underlying it is the ethics of assisted dying,

which is a reality for people, what they're thinking about. And it's a discussion for people. Yes, and very much a discussion now. But it's important to say that the series is not issue-led. We start with death and we start with what we learn has been a very bad death. And then it turns into a very good wake. So, you know, drink has been taken, as you mentioned. And so things get said. And there is a death, another death, but it isn't about the ethics. Although I'm sure that it will provoke discussion.

Yes, it will. And interesting that this is a group of friends talking about this, whereas usually it's if you get to the sharp end of this it's your family that you want to talk to um so in a way it's a kind of it's a less loaded conversation to have when it's with your with your drunken friends yeah um it makes it possible There's a peer element to it rather than some of the emotions. also very interested in living that's something and if you don't have a great deal of time left and you are at this point in your life living becomes very heightened issue for you what are you going to do with the rest of your life what didn't you do that you regret has it made you think about that well since i'm doing interviews like this, yes. Have you come up with a good answer?

What have you not done yet? Oh, what have I not done? Gosh, that's an interesting question. I'm so busy doing things that I don't feel, I don't have a bucket list because I never know. I don't know how I'm going to feel next week or whatever but but are you are you are you scared um maybe you still need to keep working I don't know for for financial reasons as well as you know wanting to do it as well I'm always aware when you know people ask why haven't

you retired you know there's lots of reasons that could be behind that but but are you scared to stop is there something about oh no not at all and I definitely do less than I used to I mean I don't want to spend six months in in a play and plays have been hugely important in my life and um that's where many people will know your work yes yes probably most people but But I want much more balance. And if you're doing eight shows a week, you miss a lot of things. And I don't want to miss things. You know, I want dinner. I don't want to miss weddings and parties and, you know, things that are happening with my family or my friends. But I do want to work because it's interesting. Yes. You know, I'm working with people of different ages.

I'm working with writers and directors. And every job is a new set of people and a new set of ideas. And, you know, I'm going after this interview to the National Theatre to rehearse a play. And that's a very lucky position to be in. Yeah I was going to bring that up actually you're in the National Theatre in Dear Octopus by Dodie Smith is that? Yes well we're rehearsing and I couldn't be playing a more different character from Phil in True Love. Phil who is still sort of hanging on to the thing of what am I doing? What can I do? Wanting to take control of things and take responsibility and looking at her emotional

life to a character who is celebrating 50 years of marriage with her middle aged children, her grandchildren, who is religious, who fundamentally believes in that model. Marriage is for life. She's never done a day's work in her life. And it's so interesting to look at someone so completely different from Phil. And an equally valid life, an equally rich life. In some ways, Dora in Dear Octopus is a happier woman than Phil, you know? Well, because she hasn't asked maybe some of the same questions. Well, she hasn't asked the same question. Her convictions have stayed pretty solid. It's not to say that she hasn't had challenges because you can't live a life and have, you know, six children

and lose some of them without facing, you know, terrible grief. But her religious convictions have never been shaken, whereas Phil is still questing, questing, questing and looking at things that she's missed and someone she's missed. I'm sure you did see this, but before Christmas, going back to True Love, the Channel 4 drama, the actor Rachel Sterling released a recording of her mother, Dame Diana Rigg, made before her death, in which Diana made a case for assisted dying. She spoke of giving human beings true agency over their bodies, their own bodies at the end of life. And very powerful words from someone in a very, very difficult situation

and from a great actor. And I know this isn't an issue-driven drama in the sense of the way it's being approached, but I wonder when you hear that in your years now, as you find yourself in your 70s, what do you make of that whole discussion? I was very moved by reading about that situation and knowing both of them as actors and respecting their work hugely.

And I did have a situation with my own mother. So I have been down this path before. My mother had dementia. We were very, very close. And then, you know, she had physiological problems. And in order to investigate what was wrong with her, it would have involved surgery. And I feel so, so lucky that as the person who knew her better than anyone else and who loved her more than anyone else in the world,

I made a decision that I didn't want her to have that surgery. What was the point in a demented woman having an anaesthetic and trying to come round from that? And I knew that she'd lived the best life that she could and I knew that she'd lived the best life that she could. And I knew that she disappeared, basically. And I felt absolutely sure that I could make that decision. I'd had doctors asking me, from my knowledge of her, was she in pain?

You know, what was she like? And I could say, absolutely I I can see the minute differences in her because I've been through the whole thing with her and um I've not talked about this because um I'm a very very private person and um but you know this has come up uh as we're talking now and uh because i i read the the interview with um with rachel sterling about her mother and uh uh true love certainly you know makes you think about this although it's it's not the whole show. And I just know that I was so grateful that I was there. I wasn't filming abroad. I was there with my mother at the end of her life. And I'd been able to make sure that she went peacefully.

And I could hold her hand and I could talk to her. And I really, really hope that if I were in that situation, that my family would do the same. Lindsay Duncan, thank you so much for feeling like you could share that with us here and with me here on Woman's Hour. It's lovely to have you on the programme. Thank you. Lovely to be here. And the programme's called True Love. Thank you for your company this morning.

I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more

questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.