Dear Daughter - Christine Orphanage Survivor Among Many

May, Sept. 2026 see 2 separate / rare public screenings / gatherings - both mark the 30th anniversary of Louis Lentin's and Christine Buckley's groundbreaking documentary Dear Daughter (1996).

Thirty years ago Louis Lentin's documentary Dear Daughter exposed the cruelty and abuse happening in Goldenbridge Industrial School (aka St. Vincent's orphanage). In this film, Christine Buckley bravely recounts the extent of the atrocities she experienced as a child in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage in this drama-documentary. Born in London, she was the daughter of a separated Longford-born woman and a Nigerian medical student, at Trinity College Dublin. At the age of three weeks old she was given up to be temporarily informally fostered/ "boarded-out". Dear Daughter delves into her traumatic childhood at the orphanage and her persistent determination to find her parents.

Dear Daughter was one of several television documentaries (including Lentin’s Stolen Lives (1999) among others, which led to the official Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2000-2009). The film was awarded the Creative Excellence Award at the US International Film and TV Festival 1996, also was nominated for Best Social and Political Documentary, Banff Television Festival, 1996. It was also included in the final short-list for recognition in UNESCO Memory of the World (2025).

Context: The UNESCO Memory of the World Programme, established in 1992, guards humanity's valuable documentary heritage, including film of international as well as local significance. Available online to view for free anytime via IFI Archive Player - with the kind permission of Dr. Ronit Lentin.