Freedom of Angels: Childhood in Goldenbridge Orphanage

by Bernadette Fahy

The inside story of growing up in one of Ireland's most notorious orphanages, where children were made to pay for the 'sins' of their parents. Bernadette tells of the pain, fear, hunger, hard labour and isolation experienced in the orphanage.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 1999

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this book made me angry. Children in Golden Bridge orphanage were horribly beaten for the slightest infraction, and the nuns forced them to spend many hours stringing rosary beads on wire, even though their hands were cut and bleeding and they were exhausted. As the author says, I can't help but wonder how many Irish Catholics used those rosary beads to pray never knowing that they were made by children forced into slave labor and guarded by sadistic nuns. I don't understand how anyone who claims to be religious can beat a child. Didn't these nuns ever read their Bibles? I have to keep reminding myself and not all nuns are like the ones in this book.

The author obviously had extreme emotional issues after leaving the orphanage – she describes how she went from therapist to therapist, struggling to find healing from the trauma she experienced. I'm glad she included that in the book, it helps give a full picture of what she went through.

[Kailin Abrahams · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Shared experience, shared inheritance, shared emotions can help us identify with others and understand what we are all going through. But I suppose a point comes when we must take flight for ourselves, embark on our own very personal journey, a journey which truly establishes the uniqueness of ourselves as individuals. The following is a glimpse of my personal journey and I include it here to share just one story of survival of Gold-enbridge, one way of coming to terms with the legacy of that type of institutionalised upbringing. Other people grew their sense of self-worth and their strength in different ways. My story may help people understand the long struggle involved in shedding the heritage offered by a confused, dysfunctional family situation and a cold, impersonal, cruel institution.’ (210)

[Sarah Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not finish. The first part about her life in the orphanage was interesting, but the next part about her time afterwards became too bogged in overly detailed analyses of various aspects her life of the lives of other unnamed girls. The story got lost.