Leinster House

After the Laying Out in May 2025, I was contacted by Senator Nicole Ryan. The work of The Bábóg Project deeply touched her and spoke to one of the focuses of her own work - namely the recognition of pregnancy loss and the support needed around families at these times, on a government level.

She offered to hold a coffee morning for The Bábóg Project at Leinster House. This coffee morning would take place in the foyer of the government buildings: a place bridging the Dáil and the Seanad. Senator Ryan would provide tea and coffee and pastries and we would create a display of the dolls and some images of the project.

My partner, Tommy, and I loaded up the car: we brought a random selection of a couple of hundred dolls and drove from Cork to Dublin. It felt really significant and also unreal. Bringing these dolls, this work into the heart of government buildings. For them to be seen, for this work to have a space in the heart of Ireland’s capital in the heart of the political arena.

We parked the car on Kildare Street and I hooked my basket of dolls on to my arm.

As we walked towards Leinster House the basket began to feel heavier and heavier. It was as if the weight of it became more real at every step.

Leinster House is not open to the public: you have to be invited by a member of the Oireachtas and there is a strict code of admission. At the gates our names were checked off the list for that day and we were invited to go through security very similar to that at an airport. Tommy and I walked through the metal detectors. The dolls were sent through X-ray, but the usher stopped our information board, saying that we couldn’t bring in printed materials as they were “promotional”. The ushers talked with their superiors who then decided that actually the dolls couldn’t enter the building either! I was very confused. How could we hold a coffee morning about The Bábóg Project without The Bábóg Project? Why is it that this work cannot be seen? It didn’t make any sense. I rang Senator Ryan and she came down to us. She made the calls, she went to the head usher, she spoke up, she stood up, she was heard. The ushers let us take the dolls through. The significance of that was not lost on me: the strong, steady voice of justice, of action, of sense coming from the mouth of a young woman on behalf of other women and children.

With the basket of dolls over her arms, Senator Ryan led us to reception where we received our security passes and then on into the heart of Leinster House.

I stood with the dolls under the Irish and European flags for our picture to be taken. I felt so proud to be there, to be representing every single person who had contributed to the project, whose voice this is, whose message is we care, we care, we care.

Under the high, light ceiling of the foyer we set up our table. Our information board telling the story and the dolls speaking for themselves. Over the course of the next hours many people came to see the project and to speak to us. Senators, TDs, aids, visitors. Many took a doll or two and many came with and shared their stories…

• She said that her and her twin were born in a mother and baby institution. They were adopted to different families and her twin now lived in the states, but was coming to visit her that very weekend. She found two tiny yellow dolls. Twins. One for her and one to give to her twin.

• He said that his wife had lost their baby right at the end of the pregnancy, but because of the system at the time, she had to continue to carry that baby, until it nearly cost her own life also. He took a little purple doll for her.

• He was born in a mother and baby institution, he fights for the voiceless, for justice, for care. He took a large doll made by a boy’s school in Limerick, a doll they called “the guardian”.

After several hours of talking and sharing, it was time for us to leave. Before we did, we met with Mary Lou McDonald, the president of Sinn Féin and leader of the opposition, who accepted a small frame of dolls that she has hung in her office.

I love that. The threads of this project have been woven throughout so many homes, so many villages, towns and counties and countries and there is also a thread running right into the heart of Ireland’s political centre. A thread of care, love and connection.