Loah, The Mary Wallopers and more to feature in NCH livestream – responding to the legacy of Mother and Baby Homes

The National Concert Hall (NCH) and International Literature Festival Dublin have announced a special live-streamed event, Breaking The Silence – featuring words and music in response to the legacy of Ireland's Mother and Baby Home Institutions. The event will be free to view on the NCH YouTube and Facebook platforms, as well as Crowdcast, at 8pm on Saturday, May 29.

Working with generational survivors of the institutions, this one-off live event is curated by author of the acclaimed Republic of Shame, Caelainn Hogan.

Musical responses on the night will come from Irish-Sierra Leonean performer Loah, and Dundalk folk group The Mary Wallopers.

The evening will also feature creative responses from poet, novelist, playwright and Creative at Tuam Oral History Project Elaine Feeney, and musician and survivor Terri Harrison, who was forcibly separated from her son through the religious-run institutions. Also contributing is actor, writer and adoption rights activist Noelle Brown, who co-wrote and performed in the play Postscript about searching for her origins.

Additional spoken word responses will come from writer and academic Philomena Mullen, who grew up in Ireland's institutional system and is working on a book for Skein Press; Majella Moynihan, author of A Guarded Life, who was forced to give her son up for adoption and charged with breaching Garda regulations for being pregnant outside of marriage; and singer, writer and poet Jess Kav, who speaks about the generational impact of the institutions.

The night also features the work of award-winning and internationally-renowned glass artist Alison Lowry from Co. Down. She uses an ancient technique called 'pate de verre', casting antique christening robes to recreate them in glass.

Watch Breaking The Silence on Saturday, May 29, at 8pm.