Bones by Tanika Gupta

A deeply moving text with a sombre focus, suitable for mature students

Bones by Tanika Gupta is not an easy read. I admit to putting it down several times to process exactly what was happening, not only to the characters in this story, but to society's appalling treatment of women and infants in Ireland, in what were known as ‘mother and baby homes’ across the country. This is a heart-breaking play based on the true story that for decades in Ireland, thousands of infant children were separated from their unmarried mothers, tortured, abused, neglected and died in these mother and baby homes under the supposed ‘care’ of nuns. Their horrific treatment was accepted at the time because Irish society saw these women and babies as sinners. They were treated as ‘inferior sub-species’ and appalling atrocities happened to them and their children, which are only now being fully uncovered.