The horrors of the Irish Mother and Baby Homes have been vividly conveyed in both drama (2013’s Philomena) and documentary (The Missing Children in 2021, and more).
Familiarity does nothing to blunt the power and emotional charge of ‘Stolen’. Previously entitled ‘Limbo’, Margo Harkin’s heartbreaker of a documentary gives a voice to those silenced for far too long. An elegant layering of chapter and verse testimony underpins a wide-ranging portrait balancing individual suffering with an understanding of the bigger societal issues. Essential viewing in Ireland but sadly universal with similar cases being uncovered in Australia, Canada and seemingly anywhere that the British Empire and ‘the Church’ cast their dark shadow…