Annie's girl - Maureen Coppinger

The shocking but ultimately uplifting life story of an Irish woman who endured 13 years of cruelty and injustice in an orphanage

Maureen
Coppinger's earliest memory is of watching the woman she believed to be
her mother walk away and abandon her to the care of the nuns at one of
Ireland's notorious industrial schools. She was just three years old.

She
remained in the orphanage until the age of 16, subjected to cruelty and
neglect, and starved of love and affection. It was an environment from
which no one emerged unscathed.

Throughout these tormented
years, Maureen dreamed only of escape, and when she was contacted again
by her mammy she believed all her dreams were about to come true. Life
in the outside world brought its own challenges, however, and Maureen
was thrown into turmoil when she discovered that the truth about her
past was more murky than she had ever realised.

Annie's Girl stands
apart as a poignant testimony to the resilience of the human heart.
This touching and evocative memoir is the incredible story of an
illegitimate industrial-school survivor's profound struggle to overcome a
shame-filled past and solve the mystery of her origins.

Maureen Coppinger emigrated to Canada in 1955, where she married and
raised three sons. She worked as a school secretary for 25 years before
retiring in 1994 and now spends her leisure time as a volunteer for the
Galway Association.