The Woman in the Wall, created by Joe Murtagh, is a testament to the fact that it is not easy to fight against the system. It crushes you; you doubt yourself every minute of the day; you feel lost, like being stranded in a cold and dingy tunnel with no hope of ever being able to see the sunlight again in your life. But even after enduring so much, Lorna Brady was not ready to give up and now even Colman Akande had joined her quest. So, let’s find out if Lorna Brady is able to find out where her daughter was and if Colman Akande is able to put the perpetrators behind bars.
Spoiler Alert
What was the Kilkinure Convent guilty of?
Since The Woman in the Wall Episode 1, Lorna had been adamant about finding her daughter. It had been 30 years since her daughter was taken away from her, but still, she had hoped that one day she would be reunited with her or at least come to know what had happened to her. She was a victim of the treacherous system that was trying its level best to hide the perpetrators behind the cloak of nobility, and they tried making Lorna Brady feel that she was the one who was insane. From the church to the government, everybody was trying to wipe off the blood on their hands and pretend that their intentions were always pure.
The tragedy was that an institution like the church was responsible for running a Magdalene laundry and subjecting all those mothers to that kind of adversity. They said that Catholicism was unable to embrace its own reckoning and move forward, but the thing was that those who believed themselves to be the flag bearers of Christianity were ready to sell their souls if they got the desired monetary benefits. Catholicism wasn’t able to move forward because the people didn’t let it and they committed a sin that couldn’t be forgiven. Lorna Brady had found an ally in Colman Akande, who had gone through a similar ordeal back in the day. The fight had become personal for Colman the day he found out that Father Percy Sheehan was not even half the man he had considered him to be.
In The Woman in the Wall Episode 5, Colman and Lorna had figured out that the house of the sacred shepherd and the sister of seven joys were not only taking babies from mothers, but they were selling them to people for money. They called it a donation, and even the adoptive parents believed that there was nothing wrong with giving some money to the church for the good work they were doing. The scam had been going on for 30 long years, and the perpetrators were roaming free as they knew that they had the immunity of the state. But there were some who were ready to put everything at stake to unmask them and bring their real faces in front of the world.
Was Aoife dead or alive?
In The Woman in the Wall Episode 5, Lorna Brady realized that Aoife Cassidy suffered from a unique condition where she became unconscious and felt like she had died, but moments after that, she came back to life. Aoife had gone to meet Father Percy after she had come to know what had been happening at the convent. She tried to convince him to approach the mothers and tell them where their kids were, but Father Percy didn’t agree to it. The man was harboring delusions, and he believed that he had helped society by selling those children to families where they could stay happy.
Aoife tried to make him understand that separating a mother from her children was the biggest sin anyone could ever commit, but the father was just not ready to accept his fault and say out loud that he was the reason behind ruining the lives of several women. Aoife wanted to take all the evidence from his house, but Father Percy knew that he couldn’t let that happen because then the entire child trafficking racket would be exposed, and they would be put behind bars. Aoife accidentally pushed Father Percy down the stairs, and she left the place, taking all those letters that the children who were adopted by families around the globe had sent him.
When Lorna Brady met Aoife Cassidy, the former believed that she had killed her. Lorna put Aoife behind the walls, but at that time, she was still pretty much alive. Aoife tried escaping from there once she came back to her senses, but she wasn’t able to find a way, and eventually, her dead body was found by Lorna in The Woman in the Wall episode 6, in her attic. Lorna blamed herself for the death of Aoife Cassidy, and she confessed to whatever she had done. Colman and Aiden had no option but to put her behind bars, though personally, they knew that she hadn’t killed her intentionally.
Was Colman able to find evidence against James Coyle?
In the previous episode, Colman realized that James Coyle was Ignatius McCullen and that the Eadrom group was involved in child trafficking. Akande didn’t want to beat around the bush, so he went directly to him and asked where he was on the night that Father Percy Sheehan was killed. Aoife Cassidy had accidentally pushed Father Percy down the stairs and taken all the evidence from his home, and that’s when James Coyle realized that he had become a liability. But there wasn’t enough evidence that could prove his involvement in the entire charade, as he had a very strong alibi that proved that he had never gone to the crime scene. Colman pickpocketed Coyle’s mobile, and he found out that he had sent his assistant Leslie to do the needful.
Colman arrested Leslie, and she chose not to say anything against James Coyle as she believed that she was doing the righteous thing. Colman told her that by protecting predators like James Coyle, she was doing no good, but the woman was brainwashed to the extent that nothing was going to impact her. Colman till the very end wasn’t able to find substantial evidence but he was hopeful that one day he would be able to prove in the court of law that James Coyle aka Ignatius McCullen was behind everything and together with father percy, he had subjected those women to such trauma and misery. For now Akande was happy about the fact that he knew the truth and the perpetrators couldn’t deceive him with their fabricated narrative.
What happened between Aiden and Sister Eileen?
Aiden, whose conscience had been asking him to do something to help the cause of the aggrieved mothers, finally went to confront sister Eileen, together with Amy. He showed Eileen the list of the children who were presumed to be dead for the longest time, but only the graves of three of them could be found. He told Eileen that she could choose to remain silent, but he was coming for her, and he would make sure that she paid for her sins. Sister Eileen always vindicated herself in the name of God, and she put the blame on the women for not being fit to be mothers. But for the first time, there was fear in her eyes as she saw that people like Aiden and Amy, who were always scared to speak against her and the institution that she represented, were now boldly standing in front of her and accusing her of the crimes she had committed.
Till the end of The Woman in the Wall, Colman hadn’t been able to find any concrete evidence that directly linked Coyle to the crime. Everybody knew that he, together with Percy Sheehan, had sold children. People like Sister Eileen had acted as facilitators, but still, due to the lack of corroborating evidence, they roamed free. We would have loved to see the look on the face of Sister Eileen if she had been arrested, but it was not so easy to put any of them behind bars when the entire state machinery was meant to protect them.
How Did Lorna Find Her Daughter?
Lorna had started to feel that maybe her daughter resented her, as she might have felt that her biological mother didn’t want her or had abandoned her. Lorna and Colman were able to figure out that, from the Kilkinure convent, the babies were sent to Saint Alma and kept there till the time the fathers and sisters prepared fake documents and handed them over to the adoptive family. Lorna had found the picture of her daughter in Aoife Cassidy’s pocket, and she realized that the latter was going to each and every mother and telling them about the whereabouts of their kids.
Tragically, Aoife was no longer in the world to see the happiness that the picture brought to Lorna’s face. Lorna was happy knowing that Agnes was alive, and she was happy. She felt at peace knowing that she had solved the mystery, and she didn’t care whether the likes of James Coyle and his sister Eileen were put behind bars or not. But Colman’s quest was not over, and he was adamant about exposing the lies that all these people had been telling the country for over 30 years now. After Lorna was sent to prison, Colman Akande followed the trial and found out where her daughter was. He contacted Agnes, who stayed in Boston, and he found out that even she had been looking for Lorna since the day her parents told her that she had been adopted. Akande went to meet Lorna in the prison, and he told her everything. Lorna didn’t know how to respond, and she did feel a bit nervous when Akande told her that she could talk to Agnes right now over a video call.
During The Woman in the Wall‘s ending, Lorna saw Agnes for the first time in years, and we could imagine the kind of emotions she would have felt at that time. Though Akande was not able to prove that James Coyle was behind the entire scam, the investigation is still ongoing, and we know that he and Aiden won’t stop unless they prove the charges in court.
