Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

207502

Cruel chronologies

Ireland, America, and transatlantic adoption in the lost child of Philomena Lee and Philomena

John McLeod

pp. 277-295

Abstract

This chapter attends to the troubling history of Ireland's adoption industry in the twentieth century, supported by Church and state, and the distinctly transatlantic context of the country's participation in transnational adoptions due to the fact that the vast majority of those Irish-born infants sent overseas arrived in America. It supports recent attempts to expose and narrate this oft-hidden history, and augments scholarly explorations of American transnational adoption which tend not to engage with this Ireland-USA axis. It addresses these wider issues through two recent linked representations of an Irish-US adoption: Martin Sixsmith's book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (2009) and Stephen Frears's film adaptation Philomena (2013). The chapter explores how Sixsmith's book directly exposes the cruel chronology of transatlantic adoption, strategically connecting past practices to present pain. Philomena Lee very much runs counter to attempts by Irish Catholic institutions to render their full complicity in Ireland's adoption history as conveniently concluded, part of a remote past. In turning to Frears's film, the chapter considers the significance of its visual rendition of America and its cinematic portrayal of a birth-mother, Philomena Lee, as present at the heart of US officialdom through her visit to Washington D.C. in search of news of her lost child (a trip which, as Sixsmith's book evidences, never actually took place). Ultimately, the chapter critically values the crucial achievements of both book and film in making plain and demanding acknowledgement of this sorry transatlantic history of sundering—a history in which Ireland and America remain firmly bound.

Publication details

Published in:

Shackleton Mark (2017) International adoption in North American literature and culture: transnational, transracial and transcultural narratives. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 277-295

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-59942-7_12

Full citation:

McLeod John (2017) „Cruel chronologies: Ireland, America, and transatlantic adoption in the lost child of Philomena Lee and Philomena“, In: M. Shackleton (ed.), International adoption in North American literature and culture, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 277–295.