Letter to Ann Lovett (1968 - 1984)

There is a very sad story in there Jane, so sensitively told.  Can I ask if it's true ?

Thanks Jane, I've just read about it. 

What a tragic story.  And apparently less than three months after Ann's death, her sister Patricia died by suicide at the age of 14.  

I'd never heard of her before either - thank you Jane, and I'll come back to her story later. Poor girl, and her sister too.

Such powerful words you have there Jane, and it’s a story the likes of which were repeated over and over again in Ireland. In the Catholic schools, young innocents (myself included) were told to love all those around them, but to teach them anything at all to do with human biology was considered sinful. How would they ever know that closeness to a person they loved could lead to pregnancy? Though in many cases the fathers were their priests who had groomed and/or raped them. Far too many young girls and babies suffered shame, misery, lives of enforced slavery in the Magdalene Laundries or even death as a consequence of ignorance and primitive beliefs.

Then there’s the ongoing Tuam Babies scandal involving the mass graves of nearly 800 babies, toddlers and young people who died of neglect in the overcrowded and insanitary conditions at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam in County Galway between 1925 and 1961. Their remains were buried in unmarked graves in a disused septic tank. The discovery was made by historian Catherine Corless in 2014, forensic work began in 2023, and full excavation commenced in July 2025.  The bodies, once identified, will be reburied with dignity in a nearby memorial garden.

Only last week I watched a very good film called Out of Innocence on YouTube (free of charge). It’s a story based on the case of the Kerry Babies that took place round about the same time as Ann Lovett’s tragic death.

Ireland, until relatively recently, was rife with this sort of stuff as, I suspect, have been other countries around the world with oppressive religious regimes. It makes me angry as much as it makes me sad.

Well done with your poem. I’ve read it three times and I’m sure I’ll read it again.

Out of Innocence on YouTube

Having been brought up a Catholic and gone to convent school, we were taught that suicide was a sin, and if you killed yourself you couldn't go to heaven.  Which makes Patricia's suicide even worse, were that possible.  A 14 year old girl must be absolutely desperate to end her own life, but to end it believing she wouldn't ever go to heaven must be a level of desperation beyond comprehension.

I believe there must have been something going on in that family to drive these two poor young girls to self destruction, unable to ask for help from the very people who should have been supporting them.

Well said, Turlough.

I've read a lot about these cases (although I hadn't heard of Ann) and sometimes the man responsible for the pregnancy was the father or brother.  Which adds another layer of hypocrisy to the indignant shame heaped by the family on the poor girl.

I can find nothing online which would explain the reason for Patricia's death by taking an overdose of her father's tablets. Nobody seems to have been that interested.  The opinion at the time was that the family had suffered enough already. The RTÉ News report headline for Patricia's funeral was 'Second Tragedy For Lovett Family' - ie poor family hit by two unfortunate events which weren't their fault.  As you say, protecting the family's reputation seems to have been far more important than anything else. 

I can't help wondering if poor Patricia was pregnant too.

"There seems to be an awful lot more to that family background than we have known about," wrote then Fine Gael minister for education Gemma Hussey in her memoir,

When I was growing up in Southampton there was a place called 'Nazareth House' which was a home for 'unmarried mothers', where most if not all of the girls were Catholic teenagers.  I remember the nuns who ran it coming to our house collecting for it.  I suppose most big cities probably had a similar establishment. In a way I think it was good that such places existed.  Hardly ideal of course, especially if the girls were pressured into adoption, but better than being thrown out by their families and fending for themselves as best they could.  

We had several girls aged 14/15 leave the convent due to pregnancy.  The irony is that we had no sex education at all so we knew nothing about contraception. Although officially (as you would know) the only allowable form of contraception was the rhythm method (otherwise known as Vatican Roulette). My mum used to say that I was proof the rhythm method worked, and my sister was proof it didn't.

Claire Keegan's book 'Small Things LIke These' is on the same subject and came out as a film last year.

The lack of sex education is certainly a major contributing factor to the problem. As you say, it was good that the unmarried mothers at least had the likes of Nazareth House to go to, but that shouldn't have been necessary. Thankfully society has moved on and is much less judgemental these days.

When the nuns went to your house collecting for it, were they collecting money or unmarried mothers?

I didn't know about the book / film. I'll look out for them next time I'm over in the West. Claire Keegan and Cillian Murphy always turn out class stuff. Thanks for that.

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A fine poem, Jane, and a very strong and fitting testament. I can't add more to what's been said already.

She must have been a very brave person. Thank you for your poem, it is one to read many times, as Turlough says. You describe brilliantly the wonder of life growing inside, made unescapable doom because of a few words in a book unsaid