Muireann O’Connell: Terri, we know that an awful lot
has happened in the past few years
in bringing to light
what happened in these places.
And something that's
very important for you
is that we do not call it
a mother and baby ‘home’.
It was never, you ended up in Bessborough.
It was never a home.
Terri Harrison: Never.
MOC: It was never a home.
TH: None of them were. MOC: None of them were.
MOC: What happened to you?
How did you end up there?
TH: I was abducted from London
by the Catholic Crusade and Rescue society.
MOC: So you were in Ireland
and you became pregnant?
TH: I was suspected I was pregnant.
MOC: Suspected, so you got out straight away?
TH: Yeah.
MOC: So you went to England?
TH: I did.
I got a good job in London and
was quite happy there.
MOC: And you were planning
on having your baby?
TH: Oh, absolutely. I was never coming back.
MOC: So, how did you end up back here?
TH: I had a little accident
and I went to the North Region Hospital
and a lady came
with a clipboard
in between the doctor in the cubicle
and asked me lots of questions,
and I innocently answered every one of them.
And it turned out she was
a social worker for the Catholic Crusade
and Rescue society.
MOC: You thought she was a nurse.
TH: I thought she was an admin worker.
MOC: An admin worker in the hospital.
And she didn't identify herself
as being from the Catholic Crusade?
TH: No.
Tommy Bowe: And how did it come to you
getting back to Cork then?
Did they have to transport?
TH: I arrived home from work one evening
and they were in my home, in my aunt’s home.
And then they informed me that
I had to go back to Ireland.
MOC: Who was in your aunt's home?
TH: A priest and two nuns.
MOC: And they decided,
they said you have to go back to Ireland.
TH: Yeah.
They informed my aunt and myself.
TB: And did they drive you back?
TH: They put me in the car
and they drove to Heathrow Airport.
He was allowed to go through customs
with me to get me on the plane.
I was never on a plane in my life.
And I was terrified with going up in the sky.
But I was also,
nobody told me anything
except I had to go home to Ireland,
that I had committed a crime,
that the English state wouldn't
look after me.
I landed in this country,
back in this country
with the clothes on my back
and then every day be told,
you know,
if you try and even attempt
to keep your baby,
you would be so selfish
to bring the baby down
to the gutter that you lived in.
So, babies deserved mammies and daddies.
And if you're feeding your baby,
you know,
if you're caught with the baby up here.
Niall loved to be up here.
MOC: This is your baby. TH: Yeah.
TH: I named him Niall.
Niall only exists for me.
He's not known to anybody as Niall.
Not my siblings, not my aunts and uncles.
Not even my other three adult children.
MOC: He was taken from you?
TH: Yeah.
MOC: You had him in St Pat’s?
TH: Sister Paul from Bessborough
came back up in the car
one Saturday morning.
The bell used to go off.
Your baby would either be in nurse one or two.
And the girls,
even though we were told
not to talk to each other
to make sure
nobody knew who we were, so, ah,
you know, we could leave.
And eventually most of us got a ticket
for the boat to go back to England.
And those of us who weren't in England were
encouraged to go to England
to get away from the country,
so nobody would know
that we were
stained, filthy, dirty girls.
So, yeah.
I'm not sure really
how or what happened that day.
Except that
I knew
when I found out my baby was in nursery one,
locked nurseries,
the only ones allowed in there
with the clergy was
people from pharmaceutical companies,
people who wore jackets
and then, you know, strangers.
But when I went up at 10:00 feed,
when the bell went off,
the cot was empty.
MOC: He was gone.
TH: Everything was gone except his clothes.
MOC: Do you know where Niall is?
TH: I do.
Yeah.
He's 49 this year.
MOC: 49? TH: Yeah.
MOC: He's safe.
TH: He's safe.
And that's one thing women, like myself,
I only speak for myself.
I prefer mothers to speak out for themselves.
But if they ask me to speak, I do.
But one thing
we need to know,
number one, that our child is alive.
Number two,
that they were looked after, but loved.
MOC: There's worry in the country, you know,
that we've got institutions
that people have been
put into that, you know, whether it's
direct provision or what's happening.
Do you think the government
have done enough,
Terri, for people like you?
You were the criminal.
It wasn't the father of the child.
It was you
who were criminalised
and locked away from society,
and we let it happen.
Has enough been done to redress
that situation? TH: Sadly not.
TH: I'm a member of the Collaborative Forum,
Katherine Zappone started it as transitional justice.
I gave three and a half years of my time
and energy devoted,
as many of the members did,
and sadly, we were let down.
Our report wasn't allowed out.
Where to, all the time -
I'm nearly 20 years
as a grassroot worker.
I'm in groups and stuff like that.
I'm a people’s person
and the social media
has lots of groups on it.
But and it's good that we could converse
inside Leinster House
rather than stand outside.
MOC: Yeah, absolutely.
TH: But the one thing I would
appeal to all ministers right now
is two bills going forward currently
and I'd appeal to them
to please listen to us.