Mother and Baby Home Report

Started by Godsown, January 13, 2021, 09:16:15 AM

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whitey

Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:25:05 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:21:34 PM
You didn't dare cross, contradict or defy a priest or damnation would come down upon you and yours for generations to follow

Not really true, by the way. Local priests in my neck of the woods were mocked, sometimes to their faces, and ignored when I was growing up.

Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

StephenC

Quote from: dublin7 on January 13, 2021, 12:54:52 PM
An issue for me would be the fact someone leaked the report to the indo for a few quid. There's no political or personal gain for anyone or any party by doing it so it can only have been done for money.

Survivors of the home who expected to be given the report ahead of its publication would have seen it splashed all over the front of the paper last Sunday. That wasn't right but of course we'll never find out who leaked it

And let's not forget that the indo went looking to acquire this report, and they decided to publish it, knowing full well the hurt it would cause. The leaker deserved to be punished (fired) but I'd love to see the editors etc in the indo come out and justify what they did.

As for the report itself ... what do you say? Just sick, disgusting and depressing. Those poor people.

And then you have politicians rushing to score points off it ... religeous orders are sorry but no indication that they'll flash the cash ...

Just depressing. :(

five points

Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

whitey

Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:35:37 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

Makes sense. I'm referring more to the earlier decades after the foundation of the state

Itchy

Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:35:37 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

I wonder, cos Cavan in the 1980s was still a religion obsessed place. Maybe you were in a more enlightened part of the county than me. The west certainly was trailing behind and I live  there now and there are pockets that are still stuck in the 50s.

J70

Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:25:05 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:21:34 PM
You didn't dare cross, contradict or defy a priest or damnation would come down upon you and yours for generations to follow

Not really true, by the way. Local priests in my neck of the woods were mocked, sometimes to their faces, and ignored when I was growing up.

Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

My auld lad spoke all the time about the power the priest wielded when he was growing up in Donegal. People's name being read out at mass for this or that, priest being up to his ears in every issue going in the area.

My mother grew up in the west. One story I've heard from her end is how my aunt, a leftie, was basically beaten into learning to write with her right hand by the nuns.

My father, also a lefty, did not suffer the same abuse. The Diocese of Raphoe must have been a bit more relaxed about "sinister" ciotogs.

imtommygunn

The left handed thing I think happened to my uncle too in the north. My aunt also had bad experiences in the same family. (not from being left handed but other stuff)

I would have said in 80s and 90s it was still the same where I'm from though we still had a fairly old school priest.

Nothing as bad as anything here but you can definitely see scar marks on older generations in the family from various goings on.

five points

Quote from: Itchy on January 13, 2021, 03:44:13 PM
Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:35:37 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

I wonder, cos Cavan in the 1980s was still a religion obsessed place. Maybe you were in a more enlightened part of the county than me. The west certainly was trailing behind and I live  there now and there are pockets that are still stuck in the 50s.

Nothing to do with enlightenment.

A visiting parish priest in national school once told us not to play gaelic as he said GAA clubs only encouraged drinking. Our parents laughed when we went home and told them. We kept going to the football.

Another parish priest wanted to merge our school with another. There was an angry response from parents who denounced him to his face at a public meeting. He dropped the merger plans.

There were other rows with another priest over GAA club functions held in local pubs. People listened politely to him and then ignored him.

whitey

Quote from: Itchy on January 13, 2021, 03:44:13 PM
Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:35:37 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

I wonder, cos Cavan in the 1980s was still a religion obsessed place. Maybe you were in a more enlightened part of the county than me. The west certainly was trailing behind and I live  there now and there are pockets that are still stuck in the 50s.

In very rural parts of the West, old people would still be afraid of priests to this day

Someone (about 10 years ago) pointed out an abandoned house to me that was supposedly cursed by a priest in the 50s.

There was a dispute over a right of way or a property line and the farmer opposed the priest.


Milltown Row2

Not a difference in opinions here, will keep someone out thankfully
None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Ea

Itchy

Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:55:11 PM
Quote from: Itchy on January 13, 2021, 03:44:13 PM
Quote from: five points on January 13, 2021, 03:35:37 PM
Quote from: whitey on January 13, 2021, 03:32:19 PM
Where and when was that?

(It definitely wasn't the case in the West of Ireland up until the early 70s)

Cavan in the 70s.

I wonder, cos Cavan in the 1980s was still a religion obsessed place. Maybe you were in a more enlightened part of the county than me. The west certainly was trailing behind and I live  there now and there are pockets that are still stuck in the 50s.

Nothing to do with enlightenment.

A visiting parish priest in national school once told us not to play gaelic as he said GAA clubs only encouraged drinking. Our parents laughed when we went home and told them. We kept going to the football.

Another parish priest wanted to merge our school with another. There was an angry response from parents who denounced him to his face at a public meeting. He dropped the merger plans.

There were other rows with another priest over GAA club functions held in local pubs. People listened politely to him and then ignored him.

;D For f**k sake, its Cavan and Football. Sure only a daft bollix of a priest would interfere with that, sure it is the true religion of Cavan.

trailer

Home Rule is Rome Rule. Unbelievable how true that turned out to be.

Cunny Funt

Quote from: J70 on January 13, 2021, 11:33:48 AM
Ireland was a sick, twisted place back then.

Like many societies where religion holds an outsize influence.

Most certainly was and can't even imagine what the rest of the world are thinking when they read this story about us. Ridiculous the power religion held on this island.

sid waddell

#43
The Catholic Church, backed up by the state, are obviously the main culprits for the culture of fear and conformity that permeated the whole of society

But what sort of responsibility do ordinary people of the time bear? Because nobody can tell me that parents of young women who acquiesced with sending their daughters to mother and baby homes do not bear some responsibility - though in some ways these parents were also victims - of brainwashing - sort of like how Trump's foot soldiers are victims of brainwashing, but also guilty of buying wholesale into a rotten culture

To go against this culture of conformity required courage and critical thinking and an unbreakable moral compass, it required immense bravery for sure, but a culture of fear can only rule if ordinary people acquiesce

It was a culture of crushing conformity - of strict patriarchy, of soft tyranny, somewhat similar in mindset if not always in law to that in post war European authoritarian regimes

But authoritarian regimes and authoritarian ideologies can only survive if people voluntarily submit

Everything was about conformity - you had to be straight, get married, have children in wedlock only, the mother stayed at home while the father went to work

Anything outside this norm brought "shame" to those individuals involved and their families - fornication, children out of wedlock, homosexuality, contraception, marriage break up, women getting ideas "above their station"

Corporal punishment was rampant, the Christian Brothers and others terrorised children, and the GAA perpetuated this official culture - "Faith Of Our Fathers" was sung at the All-Irelands, JC McQuaid threw in the ball, kissing the Archbishop's ring

Ordinary people, the foot soldiers for the Church/State regime, participated in the perpetuation of this culture of shaming and ostracising those who did not conform

If one thing changed Ireland, it was technology, it was the increasing influence of Britain and America

From about the late 1950s on, things changed gradually

The marriage bar in the Civil Service was only abolished in 1973, things like the Eileen Flynn case were still happening in 1982, when a teacher in Wexford was sacked for becoming pregnant by a separated man, in the 1980s Ireland voted for the 8th Amendment and to reject divorce

But then, at the start of the 1990s, they changed suddenly

It is hard to believe, but homosexuality was still criminalised as late as 1993, marital rape was still legal as late as 1990, in the early 1990s contraception was still only available on prescription - the "Irish solution to an Irish problem", as Haughey put it

The years 1990 to 1992 - particularly 1992, changed everything - Mná na hÉireann asserted themselves, and then the Bishop Casey scandal turned the tide against the Catholic Church once and for all, the 29 years since have been a litany of expositions of shame for the Catholic Church, one after another

In 1992 Lavinia Kerwick went public as a rape victim, The X Case happened, and for the first time the Irish people voted to enshrine women's right to an abortion

Then things changed gradually again, before picking up speed again in the decade just gone, and really only in 2018 when the 8th Amendment was abolished was this process finally completed - if it actually has been - and that's debatable

A certain conformity to those old "norms" does still exist, it will never go away entirely I think, not in my lifetime anyway


five points

Quote from: Cunny Funt on January 13, 2021, 04:39:50 PM
Quote from: J70 on January 13, 2021, 11:33:48 AM
Ireland was a sick, twisted place back then.

Like many societies where religion holds an outsize influence.

Most certainly was and can't even imagine what the rest of the world are thinking when they read this story about us. Ridiculous the power religion held on this island.

Britain had mother and baby homes too. And it hasn't been a religious country for at least a century.  I'm sure other countries had them too.