Sleepy Rosie wrote: "think possibly one of the saddest elements in this case, is that the children wouldn't have been spirited away by insensitive authorities to some anonymous chidrens home, but that they had a *close female blood relative*"

That's one aspect I'm struggling with myself. If the aim of Mena Bean Ui Chribin was to keep the family together - which I think is misguided to say the least when applied to circumstances like these - then I think it's peculiar that local, immediate relatives are disregarded like this. Their intentions seem to had exactly the opposite effect. Whereas the kids could have spent the last 'x amount of years' together, living locally with kin, they're now broken up living in separate homes &c.