A national scandal. A story rewritten. A people turned against their own.

In the most explosive moral panic in modern Irish history, a wave of accusations swept the country, claims that Christian women had committed unspeakable acts, from mass infanticide to what some even called a “holocaust.” These allegations were false, yet they spread with extraordinary speed and ferocity, leaving generations of Irish women, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and neighbours, vilified and condemned.

Why did a nation so readily believe the unbelievable?

What drove Ireland to scapegoat the very women who had held its communities together?

And how did myth, ideology, and media frenzy combine to rewrite an entire chapter of Irish history?

This book uncovers the truth behind the narrative that reshaped Ireland’s identity. It restores dignity to the women whose reputations were tarnished, revealing them not as villains but as the quiet, steadfast figures who carried the country through its hardest decades. Like stars long obscured, they deserve to shine again.

Drawing on scientific analysis, historical evidence, and a rigorous examination of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, this work exposes how key claims collapsed under scrutiny, yet continue to be repeated by a media landscape unwilling to let go of its own mythology.

For the first time, the full picture of Ireland’s 21st‑century mindset is laid bare: how a nation came to distrust itself, turn on its own people, and embrace a narrative built on distortion.
Bold, forensic, and unflinching, this book challenges one of the most powerful stories in modern Ireland—and offers readers the tools to finally understand what really happened.