Clair Wills: Author of Missing Persons

I speak with Clair Wills about her book Missing Persons which explores her family’s connection to the mother and baby homes for unwed mothers in Ireland that operated from 1922-1998 and have come into the news in the past few years after multiple mass child graves were discovered at different locations. In one of the largest of these homes called Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork, more than 900 children died and over a 20 year period between the mid-1930s and the mid-1950s approximately 25% of the babies born in the home died there, five times the infant mortality rate for the state in 1950. According to the home's own records the common cause of death was malnutrition. Clair seeks to answer unanswerable questions through memories, emotions, and the history of the Catholic church, the government, and family respectability in Ireland.