Benjamin Black is the pen name for Irish writer John Banville.

Black's character, Quirke, was in an orphanage until he was removed and adopted by Judge Garret Griffith. He subsequently became a pathologist working at the Holy Family Hospital, Dublin.

In the first book of the Quirke series, Christine Falls (2006), Benjamin Black takes up the story of Irish babies being sent to the US for adoption by ‘respectable’ American families. According to The Irish Times (1 February 2021), up to 4,000 Irish children were sent to the US for adoption between the 1940s and 1970s.

In the case of Christine Falls, it’s Quirke’s own family which is implicated in this practice