I often wondered what I had done to deserve this kind of existence

I often wondered what I had done to deserve this kind of existence

1 March 2017

FOR most of her childhood she was known only as ‘Number 51’. Suffering emotional and physical abuse in the now notorious Nazareth House orphanage in Belfast, Marie Therese Rogers-Moloney was classed as ‘educationally subnormal’ and had a life of menial work, exploitation and loneliness ahead of her.

But somehow Marie Therese found her voice, refused to accept her fate, and eventually established a successful nursing career amidst a painful search for her birth mother — a widowed hotel owner from Donegal who put her daughter in care after a fleeting affair.

This triumph of hope, hard work and redemption was put into a memoir entitled ‘For the Sins of My Mother’, which is in now in its third edition after first being published in 2014.

New interest in the Colourpoint book has been prompted by the recent findings of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry in which Marie Therese, who now lives in Carryduff, was a witness.

She has given talks about her experiences across Northern Ireland and in the Republic and her latest date is at The Corner Inn in Crossgar on Monday evening. Music is one of the great joys of Marie Therese’s life now, and she will be taking part in a traditional music session following the talk.

The Sisters of Nazareth-run orphanage of her childhood came under heavy criticism by Sir Anthony Hart in the HIA inquiry. He found evidence of systemic physical and emotional abuse at the home when Marie Therese attended during the 1950s and 60s, noting that the allegations largely centred around three nuns.

Marie Therese said that while not all the nuns were cruel, she was well aware of the three nuns in question.

“I knew the bad apples,” she said. “I met three of them.”

Like many of the children there, Marie Therese experienced or was forced to witness humiliating and excessive corporate punishment. But it was the casually cruel words that appear to have stayed with her the longest. The threat of being ‘sent to Muckamore Abbey’ for accidentally breaking a mop head is one that clearly haunted her throughout the book.

She also recalled this disturbing incident: “I was quite swarthy and one day Sister Elizabeth was in foul form. She grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, took me to the sink and started scrubbing my neck until it nearly bled.”

She noted in her memoir: “Self-worth and confidence didn’t exist in my world. I often wondered what I had done to deserve this kind of existence. Was I being punished for the ‘sin’ of my mother?”

Despite the pain she was put through, Marie Therese is clearly keen to understand her abusers better.

“Good Christian Ireland had allowed women to enter a religious organisation where it was apparent that they were unhappy,” she said. “Society, the Government and, most importantly of all, the Catholic Church had to know what way these orphanages were being run, yet they allowed children like me and many others to be treated in the manner in which we were. In my view nobody cared about the nuns so they didn’t care about us.”

There are some happy times recalled too, with short holiday placements from the orphanage with two families in Castlewellan fondly remembered.

“Throughout the journey I stared at every building, garden, trees and the people we passed by in amazement,” she recalled.

“I could see a couple standing at the door of this tiny cottage, both smiling from ear to ear…That was the start of a wonderful holiday with the Campbells, whose kindness shown to me was just remarkable. I was very timid and scared to even speak, thinking about the Sundays we had walked for miles up and down the Ormeau and Ravenhill Roads and were told not to speak to strangers.”

Terrified of what would happen when her hosts discovered her bed wetting habit, Marie Therese was clearly startled to find kindness: “I was fearful of Mrs Campbell scolding me and telling me to wash the sheets out but I needn’t have worried another minute because each night I went to bed it had been freshly made with not a word said on that matter.”

She talked too of a “Dr and Mrs Moore who were also very kind” on a second holiday to Castlewellan. In a touching account of what happened when she burnt her hand on their oven, she said: “Never having seen a stove before, I had placed my hand on it and burnt myself. For fear of the repercussions I didn’t even shed a tear. Mrs Hanna ran for Dr Moore who came from his surgery and put some kind of cream on my skin. Instead of punishment I was shown gentleness and kindness, which I certainly wasn’t used to.

“We were made to feel so important to this family and had a lovely holiday we would never forget.”

Nearby Annsborough would also play a surprising and poignant role later in life for Marie Therese. To her surprise, uncovered birth records revealed she wasn’t immediately placed in an orphanage but had instead been placed with a family in Annsborough until she was 14 months old.

Stopping at a random house as she drove through the village with a friend in Easter 2014, Marie Therese made an astonishing discovery. She asked the couple there if they remembered anyone adopting a baby in the village in the 1950s. The gentleman responded: ‘My goodness that was my mother’.

She explained: “The couple stared at me for a moment before the lady exclaimed, ‘Marie! That was your name. Did your mammy and daddy get married?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“The man went on to say that his mother loved me and never forgot about the wee Belfast baby called Marie. He said that one day the authorities came and took me away without explanation. That was the last time they saw me and he said it broke his mother’s heart until the day she died. He told me that his mother had 11 children and he was 12 years old when I had lived with them. He remembered.

“I am so glad I stopped in Annsborough that Easter Monday in 2014. Another piece of the jigsaw is finally in place. Two days later I wrote to the couple, with the hope that we could meet again. A few weeks later we did meet up and I want to extend my gratitude to this kind family for at least giving me a family home for the first 14 months of my life.”

Marie left school at 16 with no qualifications and no preparation for life outside an institution. In her book she explains how she worked long hours in several jobs and was exploited by a couple she lived with as a lodger. She then took a job in a stitching factory and eventually suffered a breakdown.

Recovering, Marie later applied for a job in a hospital and became an auxiliary nurse. Her talents were spotted and she was encouraged to train to become a nurse, qualifying at the age of 31.

Marie, now 67, and having established a relationship with some of her birth family, started writing her memoirs 20 years ago.

“I used to think — will people believe this? I thought to myself — Number 51, who are you?

“Now I don’t mind talking about it. I want every Tom, Dick and Harry to read this story, it is history. 

“It is an issue that should be out there so that it is not repeated.”