I'm nobody's child, nobody's child, Just like a flower, I'm growing wild. Nobody loves me, nobody cares. Nobody wants me, I'm nobody's child. I'm nobody's child, nobody's child. No mama's kisses, no daddy's smiles. Nobody wants me, nobody cares. Nobody needs me, I'm nobody's child.

My problem had never been anything more than an extraordinarily severe case of depression. Eventually the doctors realized this and recommended simply that I leave my husband. "Throw a stone behind you and don't look back," one of them told me. And that is what I did.

I lost count of how many times I took him to church and asked the priest to give my father the pledge, and a little pin you got when you promise God you will stop drinking. But it never worked.

I went back to my hole under the bushes in Phoenix Park. Many nights I quite literally ate paper or cardboard to quell the hunger pangs.

Once, a priest caught me eating candlewax and threw me out. I've never forgotten that. He wore warm clothes, lived in a nice house, and worked in a church where there was gold everywhere. And there I was with nothing but candlewax to eat and he saw fit to throw me out.

I looked up. There were four men looking down at me. I screamed. And that is when they began beating me. They tore off my clothes, pulled at my breasts and beat me until I was only half-conscious. And then, one by one, they raped me. I remember only bits and pieces of conversation.

As odd as this might sound, I did not realize I was pregnant. I knew so little about my own body. Although I knew in theory how women got pregnant, and I knew how babies were born, it never occured to me that this could be happening to me.

One morning I fed Thomas and went down to work in the kitchen. A few hours later when it was time to feed him again, I found him gone. I panicked. I ran downstairs to the kitchen. "Sister, where is Thomas? He's not in teh nursery. It's time for his feed."

She stared at me, unmoved. "You'll never know where he is. You'll never see him again.

I knew she was speaking the truth. The Catholic Church was so horrified by illegitimate children that when they were taken from their mothers, it was impossible to find them.