Bafta award-winning actress Monica Dolan said she believes it is important to highlight injustice through her work as she stars in The Lost Children Of Tuam.
The 57-year-old actress, who also starred in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the acclaimed ITV drama based on the true story of the Horizon IT scandal, hopes the film will help bring these stories to a wider audience.
Uncovering a hidden history
In The Lost Children Of Tuam, Dolan plays amateur historian Catherine Corless, who begins researching a former institution for unmarried mothers and their children in Tuam, County Galway, and uncovers a shocking hidden history of neglect and loss.
In 2014, research led by Ms Corless indicated that the remains of 796 babies and young children were buried in a sewage system at the St Mary’s mother and baby home between 1925 and 1961.
Produced by Liam Neeson and based on a 2017 New York Times article by Dan Barry, the film follows Ms Corless as she embarks on a painstaking investigation that puts her at odds with the local community, the Irish state and the Catholic Church.
Connecting with the audience
Along the way, she finds a growing community of survivors and campaigners seeking justice.
“I think it’s about seeing an injustice anywhere and thinking, ‘People need to know about that’,” the Middlesbrough-born actress, who won an Olivier award for her role in All About Eve along with a Bafta for Appropriate Adult, told the Press Association.
“Quite often, people might know something about it, or know an aspect of it, but I think that if there’s somebody like Catherine, once she becomes a character in a film, obviously people have seen her on The Late Late Show and everything, but once it’s somebody you go on a journey with in a film or a piece of drama and I would say this because I believe in drama, I think you connect with them in a very personal way.
“You see things from their point of view as an audience, and I just think that really helps the audience to sense the injustice, if there is one, or simply to go on that journey with them. I think that really helps. So that’s why I believe in it all.”
A shocking story
As many as 68,000 people went through the religious-run mother and baby homes in Ireland. Women’s babies were forcibly taken from them and adopted.
Up to 9,000 children died in institutions across the country, in appalling conditions.
Speaking about Ms Corless being an amateur historian who uncovers this secret, Dolan said: “I think that makes it more identifiable for people. She’s just someone who’s going to a history class in the evening.
“And I love that the history teacher says, probably right at the beginning, that when you’re doing any kind of history, it’s as important to look for what’s not there as what is there. If something’s not there, ask yourself why.
“And the whole thing was that she started her research into the mother and baby home, and there was absolutely nothing there. Then she pursued that.”
She added: “With any project, I always go with my gut, and I found this story extremely affecting.
“It was a very shocking story, and the script really moves the story forward, even in a small way.
“It is also saying something important – it’s certainly not filmmaking for the sake of it. Hopefully it is something that will make people talk and listen to each other.”
The Lost Children Of Tuam is in UK cinemas from Friday.
