This paper develops the idea of the politics of shame by offering a reading that moves beyond shame as an isolating and debilitating emotion frequently deployed to construct gendered Others as bringing shame onto the nation. It argues that although, in an Irish context, shame has been used to establish normative national subjects in contrast with deviant Others, and has performed the politics of shame by covering, that is, institutionalising, shamed Others, there is another species of the politics of shame. This variant binds “us” as members of the nation through our moral failures, including our shaming of those deemed deviant Others. By exploring the Taoiseach’s (Irish Prime Minister’s) apology speech to the Magdalen survivors, I tease out this particular operation of the politics of shame, which establishes the nation as having brought shame onto itself through its maltreatment of Others. While state apologies are important instances of acknowledgement of wrongs committed, and expressions of contrition and regret that may allow for healing, I argue that the Taoiseach’s apology, in a desire to recover national pride, reproduces the shaming of deviant Others through covering and elision in a circularity of the two manifestations of the politics of shame under discussion. Ultimately, this circularity results in the continued construction of shameful Others, even at that very moment of apology when the revealing of shameful moral failings is invoked as necessary and productive of healing and moral progress.