Irish First Mothers

11th April, 2017 - Irish First Mothers is to conduct it's own Public Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes and practices of coercion in pregnancy . The inquiry will feature broadcast of public testimony relevant to our genocide claim against the Irish State -which was served by recorded delivery on the Attorney General today. [Tracking: RL573384676IE ] The first internet public broadcasts of testimony will be on 19th and 20th April, 2017. Testimony will be released on the IrishFirstMothers.com website. More on the timing, and schedule will be released next week, but for now we plan bi-weekly broadcasts featuring live and pre-recorded testimony. Testimony will be by members of Irish First Mothers who are living witnesses of this genocidal system. Some witnesses will be named, some first name only, some a pseudonym. Witnesses will include some who have been before the Commission. Our first two living witnesses have not. The time period and institution / hospital /agency etc ...

By Kathy McMahon   ​ 4th April, 2017 -  Following correspondence to our group from the Irish Attorney General , Irish First Mothers has today  ​replied to the AG  laying  ​​formal charges of genocide against the Irish State on behalf of around 70 mothers formerly resident in Mother and Baby homes. We have also written requesting  the Presidency of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to engage with Ireland on this issue, on an informal and voluntary basis. Ou r claim under Ireland's International  Criminal Court  Act of 2006 , alleges crimes of  genocide and failure to prevent genocide  by the Irish State in respect of its historical treatment of unmarried mothers. Specifically we assert that our sequestration in State-sanctioned religious homes and the subsequent coercive adoption of our children violated two signature genocide criteria enshrined in Irish law: grievous mental harm and forced transfer of children. ...

The European Human Rights Commissioner, Nils Muznieks has criticized the Irish Government response to historical abuses in Mother and Baby homes. The verdict is a boost for the Irish First Mothers campaign, which has maintained that Ireland is in breach of human rights best practice in all its historical rights abuse inquiries. His report released Wednesday 29th March from the Council of Europe also calls on the Irish Government to widen the terms of reference of the ongoing official inquiry into Mother and Baby homes and stressed that all groups of victims of past serious human rights abuse have a right to truth, full support and effective remedies, as well as prompt, independent and thorough investigations into allegations of abuses capable of ensuring accountability. The Commissioner says that the relevant inquiries, lack a human rights based approach and offer inadequate redress to the victims.  "Given that most of the past institutional abuses concerned am...

Irish First Mothers ceases co-operation with commission Irish First Mothers group seeks clarity from State on whether testimony will be sealed Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 21:43   Updated: Mon, Mar 13, 2017, 21:44 Conor Lally The site of a mass grave for children who died in the mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA A group representing women coerced during pregnancy has stopped co-operating with the Mothers and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation over concerns about how it is being run. The Irish First Mothers group is seeking clarity from the State on whether testimony given to the commission will be sealed. It is fearful the confidential nature of the commission may mean victim accounts will never be aired publicly. The group is concerned the evidence may be disbarred from ever contributing to criminal inquiries that may follow the recent revelations about the Tuam mother and baby home. Irish First Mothers foun...

By Kathy McMahon - From August, 1981 to December, 1985, the British government interned without trial over 2,000 people in Northern Ireland. The repercussions of that misguided policy have reverberated down the years. Back then, nobody noticed that during that same four years, thousands of Catholic and Protestant young women were quietly interned without trial in "Homes" - concentration camps  where inhuman practices were visited on them.  All that horror went unremarked. Because, there was an obvious difference between the two sets of internees. Their sex. We were women. Nobody notices Invisible Women . We were there to be broken. Innocent girls mostly. Lambs to their slaughter, down the decades. Lambs to their slaughter by having our own new-born babes torn from our arms.  We queued up in our turn, as our pregnancies developed. We watched them do it to those before us as we waited our own turn. It was a horror. It was...

Read Our Letter to Attorney General http://bit.ly/GenocideLetterIr ishAG 19th March, 2017  -  Irish First Mothers has received senior counsel's advice that our group's March 5th  letter   to the Irish Attorney General seeking to bring prosecutions under the Irish Genocide Act of 1973 is well founded and an arguable case  in law .  Below we release four questions we posed relating to women's mass internment without trial in so-called "Mother and Baby Homes" and the answers by our senior counsel: Question: Is the Irish Attorney General the responsible party for domestic Irish genocide prosecutions? Senior Counsel: "Yes." Question: Is our position arguable that "religious group" status within genocide law attaches to us?  SC: "Yes." Question: Is genocide law applicable in respect of the mass treatment of Irish...

Front: Brenda Coughlan , Spokesperson for Independent Regional Mothers. Rear: Former Deputy Premier of Victoria, Peter Ryan ; Former Premier of Victoria, Ted Ballieu ; Hon. Darren Chester , a Commonwealth Minister representing Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. In Victoria Park , Sale, Victoria, Australia . 17th March VICTORIA - Leading Victoria lawmakers gathered in Sale, Victoria today to celebrate with mother's rights campaigner Brenda Coughlan, at the Victoria Park unveiling of a statue honoring the special bond between mother and child. Former Premier of Victoria, Ted Ballieu and Former Deputy Premier of Victoria, Peter Ryan attended as  Hon. Darren Chester, a Commonwealth Minister representing Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and  Ms. Coughlan, a spokesperson for Independent Regional Mothers , jointly unveiled the statue by Andrew Poppleton entitled "Mother and Child – Cherished". The event follows on from national and state leve...