Official Launch of our
Website
26th September 2006

Fiona has kindly allowed us to reproduce her words here.

'Groucho Marx famously once said he wouldn’t want to be in any club that would have him as a member. While I think he would have cut a fairly peculiar dash in the Miscarriage Association, I’m sure even Groucho Marx would have appreciated the paradox of this club to which nobody really wants to belong.

I know I’d rather not be here tonight.  I’d prefer to be at home shouting at a child who’d be nearly eight now, bullying him into doing homework and going to bed. And I’m sure many of you here tonight would also give anything not to be here.

But here we all are: and to quote another famous line, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. The Miscarriage Association are the lemonade makers in our midst (wine dealers as well tonight, happily). This is a  strong, brave, phenomenal bunch of women who’ve drawn from their own personal tragedies to provide sympathy, empathy and support to countless other women touched by miscarriage.

We all know the statistics: the conservative estimate is that one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. That’s almost as many babies as there are people with brown eyes in this country. Imagine us without brown-eyed people and you begin to get a sense of just how many missing little people we’re talking about. Miscarriage is an everyday tragedy – in fact, in this country, it’s 50 everyday tragedies.

But in the midst of tragedy comes hope, positivity and healing. And the Miscarriage Association, across its 18 year history, has provided all of these things in abundance. One of the members said to me the other night, “every life has its purpose. We just have to discover what that purpose is.” Well, the women of The Miscarriage Association – the mothers of all these short lives - should take consolation and pride from knowing that the love and support they’ve provided to thousands of Irish women has given purpose to the  lives they carried.

Now, through the talents and hard work of Michele Turner, aided by Angela Grace, the association has its own web site. This not only extends the reach of the association, but it also allows women to remain anonymous, if they so choose, and still access information and support from other women who’ve been through the pain and loss of miscarriage.

June cheerfully tells me that the Miscarriage Association is one of the most unpopular charities in the country. I suppose we can all understand why. Once, when they were collecting money in Grafton Street, a man came bounding over with his offering because he thought they were collecting for Miscarriages of Justice. When he learned the true identity of the charity, he walked away. 

Well, the Miscarriage Association won’t walk away. Polite society might prefer if women – and men - didn’t talk about their miscarriages – but we’re living now in a country that’s only too aware of the devastating results of keeping cold truths hidden. I had a miscarriage. Almost all the people in this room suffered miscarriages. And we all owe it to those little lives lost not to pretend they never existed. For as long as women and men need it, I hope the Miscarriage Association of Ireland continues rattling tins and scandalising men in Grafton Street. And I know it will continue to reach out and support those who are going through the pain of losing a child. Because as the Miscarriage Association has demonstrated so quietly and beautifully through its works, where there was life, there is hope. 

And I’m delighted now, to declare www.miscarriage.ie officially open.'

Kindly reproduced with the permission of Fiona Looney