TUAM ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Details of the Impact

Politics and Policy

At a political level, consultation on a proposal to create a national oral history project as part of the National Centre for Research and Remembrance with key civil servants and, representation by Dr Buckley at a parliamentary Oireachtas Committee on the Retention of Records Bill in November 2019 have been key examples. Dr Buckley was also invited to meet with two Ministers responsible for the MBHCOI (Minister Katherine Zappone and Minister Roderick O’Gorman) in 2019 and 2022. The archive has also provided an alternative truth/representation of those directly affected to the Final Report of the MBHCOI. Dr Buckley has been invited to speak about the project at a number of international events – particularly the St Brigid’s Day Festival in Vancouver to raise awareness of similarities between the Irish and Canadian cases. The Irish Ambassador to Canada extended the invitation in 2021.

Individual participants have had impact demonstrated through their testimonies. Peter Mulryan and Teresa O’Sullivan were significant in raising concerns over the term ‘home’ being used to describe the institution.

In conjunction with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Dr Buckley, Professor Caroline McGregor and Dr Carmel Devaney were involved in the Language, Terminology and Representation Project. The impact of this project will be evidenced in future years but there has already been a change in attitudes to the terminology which is being used and the term ‘home’ is rarely used by survivors, civil servants and/the Minister responsible.

These testimonies are one small piece of a larger puzzle, but an important one. A tapestry of details and institutional connections emerge: the County Home where their mother was placed, or perhaps the Magdalene Asylum; the district where interviewees were fostered or boarded out, showing strong geographical concentrations. The testimonies also describe the work they did without pay, the thirty or more years that it took to find their mother, their families today. The diversity of these histories reveals similarities and differences in their life stories.

In April 2023, Dr Buckley was awarded an ENLIGHT Impact Ambassador Award representing the project and project team. ENLIGHT is a European University alliance of ten comprehensive, research-intensive universities from ten European countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland), training over 300,000 learners per year and sharing a deep commitment to social responsibility. In May 2024 she again travelled to Bilboa to an ENLIGHT workshop to encourage others to engage in impactful research. In February 2024, she was invited to provide training at an event organised by the Network AESIS (Advancing and Evaluating the Societal Impact of Science) event on the project. 

Media

83 separate pieces of media have focused on the project with a reach of 16,198,416 in total. This has included BBC Women’s Hour, Morning Ireland, CNN, RTE News and international outlets. The impact of this media can be seen in how it has provided an alternative truth/representation of those directly affected to the Final Report of the MBHCOI. Kara Fox from CNN spent three days meeting and working with participants and the project team while Dr Buckley met with Dan Barry who cited her work and his article ‘The Children of Tuam’ remains one of the most read ever published by the New York Times.

The podcast Other: Stories of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home has been downloaded over 20,000 times and actor Cillian Murphy has remained a strong supporter. In the podcast, Christine Carroll speaks of the lack of food in the institution, the stigma she felt her entire life and the experience of speaking her truth in recent years and the support she has received since she participated in the project.

Peter Mulryan’s plea for this history to be taught, for younger generations to understand is a central message from the podcast.

Teresa O’Sullivan also highlighted how important the project has been for her and others – the support it has given them knowing they are believed. As the Connacht Tribune wrote –

Performance

Creative works have been a key aim of the project. The impact of the creative writing workshops cannot be addressed yet as the work is ongoing, but a number of survivors met and worked with the Drama students who created a beautiful performance piece, Nochtaithe which was premiered at the Bealtaine Festival in May 2021 and the Liverpool Irish Festival led by Dr Miriam Haughton. They commented on how beautiful it was to watch the film (it was outside due to COVID-19) and the importance of performance and art to the project. 

Participatory Research

To date we have taken 30 testimonies, 11 of which are available on the project website. Not all of the testimonies are yet publicly accessible, for varied reasons, but all those whose testimonies have been made available to date have chosen to use their own names. We owe them a great debt for sharing their history. As Johanna Skold states,

Another key finding is that engagement and trust-building with participants takes time, empathy, and flexibility. Societal stakeholders have included survivor groups (The Tuam Home Alliance/Tuam Survivors Network) and the HSE West Counseling Service. 

We held 6 events on campus and visited Tuam 15 times. Catherine Corless has been influential in giving legitimacy to the project as a trusted advocate for survivors. 

The project has benefitted survivors who previously did not feel heard, and the team have facilitated social gatherings and involvement as well as educational talks. They have described their experience as one that was ‘empathetic’, ‘supportive’, ‘not at all like the experience of giving testimony at the MBHCOI’. Evidence of the project’s impact has been collected through group discussions, through media interviews in support of the project and through the outputs from the creative writing workshops. John Rodgers has written of his mother’s experience in the Galway Magdalen Laundry

Writing in the Business Post, Catherine Healy argues

In the same article, Teresa O’Sullivan commented

Educational impact

Several participants have had a direct impact on projects related to the oral histories. PJ Haverty and Peter Mulryan’s testimonies have both been included in a new Junior Certificate History module on ‘Mother and Baby Homes’ which will have significant educational impact from late 2024 as it will be available to 60,000 students per year. The National Curriculum Committee Association (NCCA) approached the project team and survivors asking to include it as a case study given the powerful nature of the testimonies, the resources on the webpage and the ethical co-creative approach.