THE WOMAN IN THE WALL. BBC 1 sun 9pm - TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

this is a 6 part drama

1 is shown sun and then 2 on the monday

3456 the following 4 Sundays

it’s will no doubt be on iPlayer but try and not binge lovely people in my phone 😂😂😂

this will be tv paced

Ruth Wilson and Daryl McCormack are teaming up for a gripping new BBC drama, which is inspired by the horrifying revelations around Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.

The Woman In The Wall follows the horrors experienced by Lorna Brady (Ruth Wilson) is a woman from the small, fictional Irish town of Kilkinure, who wakes one morning to find a corpse in her house.

Lorna is chilled to the core as she has no idea who the dead woman is or if she could even be responsible for the apparent murder herself. This is a deadly possibility because Lorna suffers from extreme bouts of sleepwalking, which started around the time she was ripped from her life at the age of 15 and incarcerated in the Kilkinure Convent.

The Woman in the Wall follows Lorna Brady (Wilson), a woman who was incarcerated in a convent from a young age, where she traumatically gave birth – only to have the baby taken away from her to whereabouts unknown.

The awful treatment she endured continues to impact her life, causing extreme bouts of sleepwalking that end with her waking up in strange places with no memory of how she got there.

While her specific story is a work of fiction, the Magdalene Laundries were very real and are thought to have blighted the lives of tens of thousands of women.

Although their history dates back further, more is known about the practices of these institutions in the 20th century, where inmates entered via the criminal justice system, reformatory schools and the Health and Social Services sector.

Once inside, they would have to carry out unpaid labour, while many former inmates have reported being abused.

Magdalene Laundries became the subject of a media scandal in the 1990s, when a mass grave holding 155 bodies was discovered on the former grounds of one such institution in Drumcondra, Dublin.

I am finding it hard to believe she managed to get the lady into the wall like that.
I was hoping it might be her imaging it , but I think she has done it !

I've learnt something new then as I thought Gardai would capture any escaped girls from the laundries even in the 80's. I certainly didn't think they let you leave with the baby. I thought you were forced/coerced into signing the baby over. I'm going by what I have read, watched on television and listened on radio from survivors and not this drama.

I watched 1&2 last night. I thought it was very atmospheric - the stifling small town 'open secret & no accountability' vibe was well done.
I found the main actress (who I usually like) a bit OTT, esp the sleepwalking bit. The 'thick local plod' was a bit tired too. But, it's promising, & worthy even if only as a consciousness raising exercise (goodness knows the Beeb has ground to make up there!)

In Laundries, you could leave, but the baby stayed. And, as the nun said: 'you can walk out but who'd want you now'
Even in a normal community, where would you go ? How would you fund independent living? Not many Women's hostels. No single parent benefits. If your family turned their backs on you, you had real problems. And small communities have long memories. You could be 'marked for life'. eg I moved away aged 18 (or rather my Mother, having never bonded with me, kicked me out). I returned for my half brothers wedding reception, aged 22 & someone approached me at the bar & called me a barstard (again, to my face!). Idiot!

(Sorry, not meaning to be a therapy post!). Looking forward to the next episode as #2 was much better than #1 so high hopes for #3.

Yes I really struggle with this

They are meant to be christians and follow biblical teaching, why are they so horrible

Thank god I was 14 when I started at the convent. But as it had a prep school too lots of girls went there first.

My best friend now has been a Catholic since birth and her family are very strict Catholics. Her older sister (by 10 years) was for some reason sent to either a girls school or comprehensive not Catholic so escaped relatively unscathed but her younger brother (2 years) went to a Catholic boys school and then my friend is 10 years younger and went to a convent. Friend now works for a Catholic diocese. She does do yoga/reiki which is frowned upon by Catholic Church.

Can’t think which girl you mean? The Protestant girl she just disappeared in 5th form but we knew what had happened. Guessing she had the baby stayed home then left when 18. Her dad had an Irish surname. My friend’s friend (Catholic) who got pregnant at 14/15 at convent school had to leave. As she was youngest of 7 children her DM luckily supported her (she was widowed) but she had a hard life as a single mum. Was shunned a bit by family.

Apart from the one west Irish tale I heard from stepdad they keep it all quiet over there. All my stepdad’s brothers and him were altar boys and they all joked about bishop of Galway etc. generally even now if someone gets pregnant though it’s not the shame it once was it’s still frowned upon.

My step grandma was from Kerry and came to England as a young woman with her parents who settled here. Over the years her nieces came to England to study nursing. I hope they didn’t have to come for other reasons. My aunts (step grandma’s DDs) are still traumatised by a convent education and step grandmother married my grandad who was a divorcee and Protestant (but actually originally Catholic) and she was threatened with excommunication unless she brought up children in Catholic faith, which she did.

In episode 2 what did young Lorna do to Clemence? It seems she betrayed her somehow and the nuns praised her and punished Clemence by cutting her hair off but I don’t understand what Lorna actually did.

@TangoTarantella she told the nuns Clemence was going to see her baby and escape with baby.

In exchange for the information the nuns said she could spend some time with her baby. But obviously that didn't happen in the end.

Of course

And will tag you in this weeks collection. A few dramas this week and next

Thought the plot of shoving aoife in the wall

The actual story is horrowing 🥲🥲

Did all the babies get adopted - possibly like detective - is he a laundry baby

And assume others died or got killed

As so many mums /babies where did they all go

And the support group are they all local woman so many got preg in young teens ?

I guessing that she didn't kill aoife and whoever killed Clements killed her

But who is going round killing the mums to stop them find out the the truth

Or am I watching and thinking wrong

Either way the nuns who are meant to be religious and Kind are not

Thanks @purpleme12

I thought Clemente killed herself? Or that's what we're supposed to think?

As a side note, I was confirmed in Arundel Cathedral by the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor - who covered up for a later convicted child molester. Makes me feel sick when I think about it.

Or was she killed so she couldn't talk

I don't think we know yet whether she was killed or killed herself.

But I think she might have been killed

But I'm unsure

Would her mum in England not take her?

LittleMonks11 · Yesterday 18:02

@GonnaGetGoingReturns 'Forgive me father for I have sinned' should never have to come out the mouth of a 10 year old and yet we had to go to confession twice a week. I had to make stuff up! Hope your school friend found her freedom

I used to make things up as well.

I didn't really notice any comedy bits for some reason. I thought the boy from Lorna's school saying she was funny when they were at school was supposed to emphasise that she'd been a happy/normal school girl but had been driven mad due to her grief at losing her baby and her experiences in the home.
I remember at the end of The Magdelene Sisters film they said that the woman Crispina was based on who ended up in a padded cell died very young of anorexia.
I agree the time frame doesn't seem that accurate and also that I'd have preferred an Irish actress. I suppose it depends who was available and who was put forward for casting. Would be interesting to know. Maybe one of the actresses in The Magdalene Sisters would have been the right age.

I was pushed into the confession line at 14 during Friday mass and the one time I was there and froze. The priest must’ve realised I was a prottie because he mumbled something like “you can go child”.

I think Ruth Wilson was involved in getting it made.

I'm not sure this should have been classed as a drama by the BBC . I didn't know much about what happened but Googled and there's so much about it, too much to read . Surely there must have been documentaries made ?

I assumed that all the babies were adopted but apparently 25% of them died due to the conditions there . It's horrific .

Ruth Wilson is one of the executive producers .

Her Mum made a life for herself in England. I don't think a single Mother in England would have been easy back then.

@butterpuffed in 1975 two young boys playing discovered a hole or chamber filled to the brim with children's skeletons underneath a concrete slab.
They were assumed to be remains from the Great Famine of 1845, unbaptised babies ( who would not be allowed by the Catholic church to be buried in "sacred" 🙄ground ) or stillborn babies.
It took another 35 years + before it was revealed that the Mother and Baby Home at Tuam burial site contained the bodies of almost 800 babies and young children in a mass, unmarked grave.
The death rate of babies and young children in Tuam was found to be almost twice that of other Mother and Baby homes.
I'm hoping that the exhumation of the burial site will start soon and those babies remains will be returned to their families if possible.
It is horrific and I fear Tuam is not the only Mother and Baby home where babies and children were not given a decent burial.
Bessboro in Cork needs to be investigated too, before it is too late and the site is developed.

I visited the site at Tuam, for a vigil some years back. It was a bleak, wet December day but the warmth of Catherine Corless and Peter Mulryan, a child born in the Mother and Baby Home and now campaigner for justice for the children of the home, including his two siblings, shone through.
Heroes both.

That is absolutely horrendous @LadyEloise1 . To think that anyone could perpetrate such inhumane acts is harrowing enough , but to know it was by people who called themselves religious is beyond belief .