Jennifer Kelly was a lonely child. At fifteen she was living with her Dublin-born parents Irene and Matt in Manchester. Irene was a recluse, shutting herself away for days at a time, crying non stop, and Jennifer started to dread going home. She knew nothing of her parents’ past - until, one day, Irene had a phone call from Ireland that would change their lives forever.

A commission had been opened to investigate claims of abuse in Catholic-run industrial orphanages and for the first time Irene was forced to confront her terrible memories. Brought up in poverty, and half-starved, she was abused by her mother from an early age. When her mother was hospitalised, Irene was put in an industrial orphanage where she was treated with incredible cruelty, beaten and sexually abused. She became a wild teen, her life going nowhere, until she met Matt, a young man with his own demons. They moved to England but the pain was not so easily left behind. Sins of the Mother is a powerful and inspiring story of a family whose love was tested but never broken, who finally found the strength to heal the past.