Sir, Your correspondent, Ms Mulready (April 11th), in spite of her concern for truth, does not seem to realise that it was apparently badly served in the TV programme Dear Daughter. If truth is telling things as they are, the programme in question failed miserably in presenting anything like a true picture of the orphanage. It concentrated on one period, and it devoted only a few seconds to the fact that according to the protagonist, all was changed after a new sister came, and she was happy there.
Even more disturbing is the fact that many who were in the orphanage at the time rejected the account given in the film as quite untrue, and rejected in particular the account of the sister who was so unmercifully pilloried. I suppose most of us have come across people who can represent an ordinary journey as a heroic saga, or an ordinary institution as "a living hell". They are our best raconteurs, but poor witnesses.
Even while watching the film as it was transmitted, it struck me that perhaps we were being shown the illustrated fantasies of the protagonist, and not the truth. And not a word of compassion for the overworked women trying to care for so many orphans on a pittance.
Since then, this impression has been greatly strengthened. It now appears that the sister in question, far from being the monster portrayed, was a second mother to many of her charges, one who would go to great lengths to help and comfort. She is, evidently, a person of whom the Mercy Sisters can be proud. It is not easy for anyone to emerge with credit and love from an orphanage situation, but this sister did it with flying colours. Ms Mulready, in her zeal, seems to have overlooked this testimony.
I might mention, in passing, that it reprehensible on the part of Pat Kenny to expose Sister Helena to an angry mob in his studio. And indeed, some of the journalists disgraced themselves too like the egregious columnist who thought that getting the children to string Rosary beads was slave labour. And, of course, there were the usual idiots who thought it was like the dying rooms of China.
If there are apologies to be made, it is to the sister who was so cruelty treated, and to the Mercy Order so grossly misrepresented. If there is compensation to be paid, it is to them that it should be paid for the injury done. Yours etc The Abbey, Galway City.