Letter to Ann Lovett (1968 - 1984)

By Jane Hyphen
- 384 reads
Close the door, Ann
Exist only with this tiny life
Flickering, beating, unstoppable now
With what they would call trouble
Go beyond the futility of shame
Friends fading, childhood extinct
Close the door, Ann
Save your energy
Do not waste yourself
On what you’ll see in people’s eyes
Or waste your careful words
On what they will never understand
Close the door, Ann
Until the voices muffle right away
And you only hear what he hears
Together forever, cells exchanged
He hides in you and you hide
Because they’ll never see who you are
Close the door, Ann
Only on the other side of fate
They can promise you in earnest
What they could never have delivered
You didn’t ask for it, you knew
Because you were always one of the brightest
Close the door, Ann
As the year deepens one way
The quickening inside you
Summer ripening to autumn
You hide inside this ever shrinking room
Christmas bearing down, heavy as lead
Close the door, Ann
And run away to the sanctuary of prayer
Your secret’s bursting now with life
Through the burning light where all life starts
Hold on and you’ll be alright
Like Mary and that story, told on repeat
Close the door, Ann
And swallow unimaginable pain
This is how the human race exists
Don’t die like all those nameless women
In greater numbers than ever soldiers did
No monument to them but we remember
The story of you and your little one
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Comments
There is a very sad story in
There is a very sad story in there Jane, so sensitively told. Can I ask if it's true ?
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Thanks Jane, I've just read
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.
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I'd never heard of her before
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.
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Out of Innocence
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.
Turlough
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Have you read 'Small Things
Have you read 'Small Things Like These', by Claire Keegan? Also a fine film starring Cillian Murphy. The horrors that get smothered under the mantle of belief and a divine authority...
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Having been brought up a
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.
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Shame
Kat, there’ll have been enormous pressure on them from their families because at that time they’ll have been considered to be the cause of overwhelming shame on the entire family and possibly even the local community. Some families were understanding, caring and helpful but many more were the complete opposite. Those young girls who committed suicide did so in the belief that they’d be damned for all eternity but at least their families wouldn’t have to endure the humiliation that they had brought on.
This is why so many young girls were taken away to work as slaves in church-run laundries, why there were so many forced adoptions and why so many infants just disappeared. No one can tell how many babies died during childbirth or shortly afterwards. Many pregnancies were endured in secret and consequently without any sort of antenatal care, and the babies disposed of one way or another to save the good name of the family in the eyes of their god.
Turlough
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Hypocrisy
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,
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Emotions
Thanks Kat.
The families, the authorities and the church pulled the raw emotions of these poor girls in all directions, and they were nearly always very young. With nobody to turn to it must have been absolute hell for them. There’s been a long line of cover-ups since then so it’s unlikely that people will ever get to know the truth.
Have you read Martin Sixsmith’s book, Philomena, or seen the film? It’s an absolutely incredible true story. The Magdalene Sisters is a good but harrowing watch too, and only based on the descriptions of events of people who had been held in the laundries.
When I was in the foot business I had around half a dozen clients in a sheltered accommodation scheme in an old building in Walcott Street in Bath. They told me that until the mid 1960s it had been a laundry / asylum for ‘fallen’ women. It hadn’t been a Catholic one so it wasn’t called a Magdalene laundry but it worked along the same lines. Nobody could remember which denomination it had belonged to. During my time the only evidence of its previous use was its very ornate former chapel that had latterly become the setting for house meetings and social events. It was one of many such places I visited that belonged to a countrywide organisation called Anchor Housing, but because of its location it was sold for a fortune to property developers around fifteen years ago and the vulnerable elderly residents were relocated to other sites around the city. Another chapter in its awful history.
Turlough
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Small Things Like These
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.
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Nuns
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.
Turlough
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Just read this... since
Just read this... since making my own comment. Yes, it's a fine, though harrowing book. And film. Claire Keegan is a fine writer. Her short story collection 'Walk The Blue Fields' is one I'd recommend. Also, another fine Irish writer (though not on this subject matter) is Billy O'Callaghan. His 'The Boatman' collection is a favourite.
'Spotlight', of course - on the abuses carried out by Catholic priests in an archdiocese in Boston (US) - is another fine film. The subject simply leaves me raging. And no church or belief system is innocent.
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Recommendations
Many thanks for the recommendations Harry. I've added them to the to-do list for my next trip over. There's no chance of seeing or getting hold of any of these things in this part of the world. However, I'm reliably informed that there are books a-plenty about similar goings-on within the Bulgarian Orthodox church.
Turlough
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A rare cathartic moment -
A rare cathartic moment - fictional though it might be. Also starring Cillian Murphy in a memorable role...
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This is our social media Pick
This is our social media Pick of the Day
Please share far and wide
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A fine poem, Jane, and a very
A fine poem, Jane, and a very strong and fitting testament. I can't add more to what's been said already.
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She must have been a very
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
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