DESCRIPTION:
This song was written following the death of Anne Lovett, a young girl who died in childbirth near a Grotto in Granard Co Longford.
Anne Lovett was a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl from Granard, County Longford, Ireland who died giving birth beside a grotto on 31 January 1984. Her baby son died at the same time and the story of her death opened up a seminal national debate in the country about women giving birth outside marriage.
An inquest was held in Mullingar a few weeks later and found her death was due to irreversible shock caused by haemorrhage and exposure during childbirth.
The circumstances of her death were mentioned in Dáil debates.
There have been a number of cases with which too many Members of this House have been all too familiar in recent years — for example, the Kerry babies case and the case of Anne Lovett from Granard — which did not reflect well on the attitudes that exist here to children either within or without the home.
—David Molony, Dáil Eireann
A quarter of a century on from a tragedy that shocked the nation, many questions remain unanswered about the deaths of Anne Lovett and her infant child.
—Ali Bracken,
In October 1987, Cry Before Dawn released a song titled 'Girl In The Ghetto', which had been written as 'Girl In The Grotto'. It is a reflection on the Anne Lovett story.

"In this Land full of fools when you play by the rules"