Tuam Babies

[J70]

Yes to that. It grates with me somewhat but it's simply a matter of the other half having the say. For me it's a game and I don't really care enough for it to be too divisive. They do nothing beyond what school asks of them.

Same here with us, my son is getting ready for his first communion at the moment. Last year at Easter they were talking about Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday, on the way home he asked me was Jesus a zombie

He must be quite an intelligent child taking an abstract notion like the resurrection and relating it to his own life experience but I would have to ask why is he being allowed to watch the Walking Dead?

Young kid culture is full of zombies these days. Whether its the Hotel Transylvania films, Minecraft, the zombie vegetables from the Monsters v Aliens shorts etc. Standard stuff now, even for pre-schoolers.

[magpie seanie]

Every time I think of this I feel physically sick. The sickos that are responsible for this should be named and shamed - even if they are no longer alive.

The cruelty with which the Catholic Church dealt with people it perceived to have broken their sex obsessed rules was and still is in places (don't forget up until recently Africans were being taught condoms give you HIV) horrific. Together with their facilitation and protection of paedophiles and their vicious tormenting of their victims it's really past time that something meaningful and honest was done by the Catholic orders to show they're actually sorry for what happened. They talk of a truth commission up north for the troubles - I think more damage has been done by agents of the church on this island. Yet they still preach to people on how to live their lives, they still own vast amounts of land and buildings while telling us to help the less well off. The hypocrisy must end if they're to have any credibility.

Sorry for going off on one....this is how I genuinely feel. Mostly when I think of the Catholic Church I feel sick.

Great post.

Indeed. I have a question, going off topic. Do you put your children through the Catholic sacraments? I ask this with no agenda btw, I'm just interested. I have no children and feel very much like yourselves on the Catholic Church in Ireland.

I also appreciate that this type of question has probably been discussed before.

I know where you are coming from and I suppose you do it because it's "the thing to do", and it's a big thing for the child (communion & confirmation) but yeah I wouldn't give the church the time of day normally. I suppose you would fairly alienate the child among their peers if you excluded them from communion/confirmation

An excellent question and one which has bothered me for quite some time. I've tried to answer concisely a few times and failed so sorry if this is not a great explanation. I'm taking an active role in my kids religious education. I think it's best to put them forward for the sacrements with their peers and let them make their own way when they're old enough to do so. I don't want to single them out at a young age because of my beliefs/concerns when they can sort it out for themselves at a possibly more appropriate time. Kids can be cruel so creating a "difference" when not really necessary is something I'd rather avoid. Hope this makes sense.

[J70]

One of the pluses of rearing your kids in the states and sending them to public school is that you don't have to deal with this stuff. My kids aren't baptized, and religion just isn't an issue in their lives as it doesn't really ever come up. My son did hear some other kid talking about Jesus once and asked me about it, but I simply explained that he was a make believe being that some people believed in. Christmas is all about Santa Claus, Easter is about the Easter Bunny. Ghosts are make believe and sources of fun at Halloween, just like vampires, zombies and witches. If, as they get older and learn more about this stuff, they decide they want to pursue it as adults, that's their choice.

[laoislad]

Every time I think of this I feel physically sick. The sickos that are responsible for this should be named and shamed - even if they are no longer alive.

The cruelty with which the Catholic Church dealt with people it perceived to have broken their sex obsessed rules was and still is in places (don't forget up until recently Africans were being taught condoms give you HIV) horrific. Together with their facilitation and protection of paedophiles and their vicious tormenting of their victims it's really past time that something meaningful and honest was done by the Catholic orders to show they're actually sorry for what happened. They talk of a truth commission up north for the troubles - I think more damage has been done by agents of the church on this island. Yet they still preach to people on how to live their lives, they still own vast amounts of land and buildings while telling us to help the less well off. The hypocrisy must end if they're to have any credibility.

Sorry for going off on one....this is how I genuinely feel. Mostly when I think of the Catholic Church I feel sick.

Great post.

Indeed. I have a question, going off topic. Do you put your children through the Catholic sacraments? I ask this with no agenda btw, I'm just interested. I have no children and feel very much like yourselves on the Catholic Church in Ireland.

I also appreciate that this type of question has probably been discussed before.

I know where you are coming from and I suppose you do it because it's "the thing to do", and it's a big thing for the child (communion & confirmation) but yeah I wouldn't give the church the time of day normally. I suppose you would fairly alienate the child among their peers if you excluded them from communion/confirmation

An excellent question and one which has bothered me for quite some time. I've tried to answer concisely a few times and failed so sorry if this is not a great explanation. I'm taking an active role in my kids religious education. I think it's best to put them forward for the sacrements with their peers and let them make their own way when they're old enough to do so. I don't want to single them out at a young age because of my beliefs/concerns when they can sort it out for themselves at a possibly more appropriate time. Kids can be cruel so creating a "difference" when not really necessary is something I'd rather avoid. Hope this makes sense.

Well said again. I'd be much the same thinking as you and I think it's the right way to approach things.

[Take Your Points]

An excellent question and one which has bothered me for quite some time. I've tried to answer concisely a few times and failed so sorry if this is not a great explanation. I'm taking an active role in my kids religious education. I think it's best to put them forward for the sacrements with their peers and let them make their own way when they're old enough to do so. I don't want to single them out at a young age because of my beliefs/concerns when they can sort it out for themselves at a possibly more appropriate time. Kids can be cruel so creating a "difference" when not really necessary is something I'd rather avoid. Hope this makes sense.

Well said again. I'd be much the same thinking as you and I think it's the right way to approach things.

+1

[Main Street]

Is it such a big deal among children to be confirmed into the catholic church, that it becomes the default action and those kids who don't go forward for confirmation would be shunned and taunted for not participating?
Are non-catholic children in primary and secondary school the subject of such bigotry?
I can certainly understand why a kid would not want to stand out but I didn't think confirmation would be one of those issues for children that it would inspire taunts and shunning.
Yes to all issues to do with sex, clothes, sports, perhaps music, but not religion, at least not in my experience at secondary school in Co Dublin, it just didn't matter that much.

Anyway, as stated my kids didn't go for a religious confirmation, there were alternatives organised by non-religious denomination parents (outside Ireland) and dare I say it (but it is the thread), it was later revealed that the catholic bishop who took the confirmation classes with the catholic kids, had been accused of sexual abuse in the Netherlands  as well as covering up other sex abuse cases. before being shunted out of there to my location.  Though his sister maintained he was innocent, his guilt was finally admitted by Dutch Catholic Church in April 2014, "in a rare admission of guilt".

[johnneycool]

Every time I think of this I feel physically sick. The sickos that are responsible for this should be named and shamed - even if they are no longer alive.

The cruelty with which the Catholic Church dealt with people it perceived to have broken their sex obsessed rules was and still is in places (don't forget up until recently Africans were being taught condoms give you HIV) horrific. Together with their facilitation and protection of paedophiles and their vicious tormenting of their victims it's really past time that something meaningful and honest was done by the Catholic orders to show they're actually sorry for what happened. They talk of a truth commission up north for the troubles - I think more damage has been done by agents of the church on this island. Yet they still preach to people on how to live their lives, they still own vast amounts of land and buildings while telling us to help the less well off. The hypocrisy must end if they're to have any credibility.

Sorry for going off on one....this is how I genuinely feel. Mostly when I think of the Catholic Church I feel sick.

Great post.

Indeed. I have a question, going off topic. Do you put your children through the Catholic sacraments? I ask this with no agenda btw, I'm just interested. I have no children and feel very much like yourselves on the Catholic Church in Ireland.

I also appreciate that this type of question has probably been discussed before.

I know where you are coming from and I suppose you do it because it's "the thing to do", and it's a big thing for the child (communion & confirmation) but yeah I wouldn't give the church the time of day normally. I suppose you would fairly alienate the child among their peers if you excluded them from communion/confirmation

An excellent question and one which has bothered me for quite some time. I've tried to answer concisely a few times and failed so sorry if this is not a great explanation. I'm taking an active role in my kids religious education. I think it's best to put them forward for the sacrements with their peers and let them make their own way when they're old enough to do so. I don't want to single them out at a young age because of my beliefs/concerns when they can sort it out for themselves at a possibly more appropriate time. Kids can be cruel so creating a "difference" when not really necessary is something I'd rather avoid. Hope this makes sense.

I'm of the same attitude and a lot of my friends more religious than me know my stance on it so I don't think I'm being hypocritical when my kids go through the sacraments.

[Farrandeelin]

Are non-catholic children in primary and secondary school the subject of such bigotry?

There was never an issue when I was in school, nor is there now. Maybe it's a rural thing.

[Main Street]

Leader of Bon Secours order is 'lying through her teeth', court told

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/leader-of-bon-secours-order-is-lying-through-her-teeth-court-told-35508088.html

Peter Mulryan, whose infant sister Marian Bridget Mulryan is believed to be among 796 children recorded as having died in Tuam between 1925-61, was too unwell yesterday to attend court.

But he wants Tusla to look at the material it has "and see what happened to that little girl, did she die, was she trafficked or is she buried in the pit", his solicitor, Kevin Higgins, said.

Mr Higgins told the court he considered the letters showed Sr Ryan, "as is the norm for the Bon Secours sisters", "is lying through her teeth" and indicated the order knew "a lot more" more in 2013 and knew "where the babies are buried". Mr Mulryan (73), of Derrymullen, Ballinasloe, wants leave to bring judicial review proceedings against Tusla aimed at getting any material that exists concerning his infant sister, who was recorded as having died in February 1955 nine months after her birth at the home.

[Declan]

Outrage is futile - what we need is the State to protect our children

Colette Browne 

Can we dispense with the expressions of shock please? There may be revulsion, yes; disgust, certainly; but not shock.

None of us can honestly profess to be shocked that the existence of a mass grave, crammed with the remains of hundreds of infants and toddlers, has been confirmed at the site of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

Historian Catherine Corless told us it was there in 2014. She said the bodies of these children had been discarded in a septic tank, treated with as much disdain in death as they had been in life.

Between 2011 and 2013, Ms Corless unearthed records that suggest 796 children died at the home without their burials being recorded. She is certain of the figure because the State charged her €4 for each of their death certificates - the most money ever spent on some of these children.

So, can we stop with the pretence? The lie that nobody knew this was happening? If we truly want to honour the memory of these dead children, can we at least be honest and attest to the reality of their lives?

The brutalisation of these children was state policy for decades. They were deemed sinful, expendable and inconsequential - a stain on society who sullied anyone near them.

These children were so offensively toxic they were not considered worthy of a plot of earth in a nearby graveyard. Instead, their bodies were tossed into a pit that was constructed to house human excrement.

As vile as their treatment was in death, it is not the grotesque manner of these children's burial that should cause so much upset. It is the fact that they died in such numbers, abandoned by a State that should have protected them.

Even now, there have been attempts by some in officialdom to rationalise their deaths as somehow normal, a sad reflection of higher child mortality rates at that era. These are more lies.

Research by reporter Conall Ó Fátharta has revealed that in one mother and baby home, Bessborough in Cork, the recorded death rate in 1944 was 82pc. This compares with a child mortality rate, for marital children, of 7pc at the time.

The staggering number of deaths prompted an investigation by the Cork County Medical Officer. Nothing came from it. The home closed briefly but quickly reopened, a convenient place for children to die.

The fate of these children is a stark reminder that Ireland, despite all its outward expressions of piety, has never been a pro-life country. It is a pro-birth country, with the State's interest in children's welfare evaporating as soon as they are born.

The bodies being dug up in Tuam are not the only evidence of this. Until recently, the State didn't know the number of children who had died in State care. Nobody had ever bothered counting them.

In March 2010, the then Minister for Children, Barry Andrews, told the Dáil that 23 children had died in State care since 2000. It later transpired that the true number of deaths was nearly 10 times greater.

In total, 196 children who were in care, after-care, or known to HSE child protection services, died - 112 from non-natural causes.

Commenting on the figures, Fine Gael's then justice spokesman Alan Shatter said it was a "scandal of enormous proportions". "How could it be the case that so little value was attached to the lives of these children and that, until now, no action was taken to identify and collate the numbers dying in care or to review the circumstances of their individual deaths?" he asked.

In the light of the excavation currently underway in Tuam, the answer seems to be that the State has never cared very much about the lives of vulnerable children. Their treatment was the norm.

Around the same time Mr Shatter was demanding the HSE explain its indifference to the deaths of children in its care, another investigation was underway.

The HSE was conducting an internal inquiry into its treatment of Grace - a young woman with intellectual disabilities who was left in a foster home for 14 years after allegations of sexual abuse had been made.

That report was concluded in 2012, but the HSE sat on it for five years, ostensibly because it was precluded from publishing it due to a request from gardaí.

However, on Sunday, RTÉ's 'This Week' programme revealed that the HSE first contacted gardaí about the report's publication in 2015 - three years after it was completed, but the day after a whistleblower raised Grace's case with the Public Accounts Committee.

That timing, we are now supposed to believe, was entirely coincidental. A commission of inquiry, due to be set up this week, will have to have the final say on that.

The common thread running through these cases is the inaction of the State when faced with serious cases of abuse, neglect and even unexplained deaths.

The first instinct of officials is self-preservation and damage limitation, not the protection of children. There is no accountability and no transparency. Nobody is ever even sacked.

Scandals of this nature now follow a familiar pattern - politicians express shock, an inquiry is set up, and, once it reports, there is brief flurry of media coverage. Then, the controversy dies down and everything reverts to normal.

Even when politicians make a solemn promise to tackle a problem, there is little evidence of anything having been done.

Nearly three years after Taoiseach Enda Kenny told the Dáil that, "nobody could condone children being homeless", there are now record numbers of children living in temporary accommodation.

In 2014, when Mr Kenny made his comments, there were 700 homeless children. Today, that number stands at 2,407.

In January, the most recent month for which figures are available, a further 87 families with 151 children became homeless. According to Focus Ireland, this means that in Dublin that month, a child became homeless every five hours.

The State seems utterly incapable of doing anything to ameliorate the situation for these children, despite Government TDs routinely claiming that every available resource is being dedicated to finding a solution to the problem.

Back in 2014, Mr Kenny was saying that the problem was a supply issue and we needed more houses. Three years later, the same excuse is being trotted out.

Where are the houses that could have been built in the past three years if the State was really serious about solving this problem?

Why is it that fewer social houses were built last year than 2015? Figures published by the Department of Housing in January revealed that just 448 units of social housing were provided by local authorities and housing associations in 2016 - the worst year on record for four decades.

In Dublin, where thousands of children are currently living in hotel rooms, the City Council only managed to construct 40 new homes - 22 of which were ironically named "rapid build" modular houses. If we have a homeless crisis, and we do, the State's pathetic response is destined to be the subject of another commission of inquiry in a few short years.

At a basic level, the State should be able to house and protect the children who are born here. Regrettably, Ireland has been failing at this fundamental task for countless years.

In a functioning democracy, a government that so spectacularly failed to improve a homeless epidemic would be toppled, while those who abuse children would be held to account in the criminal courts.

Here, we express outrage and compile reports.

Irish Independent

[Main Street]

Outrage is futile - what we need is the State to protect our children

Colette Browne 
Historian Catherine Corless told us it was there in 2014. She said the bodies of these children had been discarded in a septic tank, treated with as much disdain in death as they had been in life.


Irish Independent

Catherine denies using that type of language  "I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words."

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393

[trileacman]

Outrage is futile - what we need is the State to protect our children

Colette Browne 
Historian Catherine Corless told us it was there in 2014. She said the bodies of these children had been discarded in a septic tank, treated with as much disdain in death as they had been in life.


Irish Independent

Catherine denies using that type of language  "I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words."

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/tuam-mother-and-baby-home-the-trouble-with-the-septic-tank-story-1.1823393

That's a much less hysteric piece than most I've read in the last week and probably a lot closer to the truth. There's a rhetoric in use currently that is building an image that these children were murdered and tossed in a septic tank full of shit by nuns in robes. That isn't true and is as big a lie as those used by the church down the years. The falsehoods being spun about this story to cause outrage are fairly obvious even. The clearest contradiction happens to be this one from a few quotes back:

Between 2011 and 2013, Ms Corless unearthed records that suggest 796 children died at the home without their burials being recorded.

Got talking to an aunt of mine last night, who unlike a lot of people offering their opinion in the press lived through the era of mother and baby homes and such. She said something profound and worth repeating I think and it was that "Irish people offer much more respect to the dead than the living." She said this was much truer in days gone by when the infant death rate was much, much higher than it currently is. Babies and youngsters were not a seen as valuable or as loved as they are now, orphans were more numerous, especially those with mothers who, forcibly or not, gave them up for adoption.

The church has a lot to blame to take for the prevailing attitudes of the time but more so so than anyone was the men in a male predominated society. Very few of those babies born outside of wedlock were a consideration for their fathers for long. They were a mistake and an inconvenience and most of them would have been glad these homes would poorly fulfill any obligations they had to the mother or the child. An unplanned pregnancy was seen as the women's fault and a women's problem, men shunned the responsibility and the blame because it was convenient and society through the church created a hugely flawed system to deal with it.

[Take Your Points]

While the unmarried pregnant women were sent to these institutions, then abused by those running the institutions and babies and mothers were dying in atrocious conditions, what was the equivalent in the North.  The attitudes in the North towards unmarried pregnant women were no different so what happened? 

[Main Street]

It has to be repeated again and again that infant mortality in ireland was high among the poorest. High infant mortality figures were the effects of poverty ridden unsanitary conditions.
The unmarried mothers sent to these homes, by and large were from the poorest homes.

In the North, the state agencies did not like to interfere directly with such foster, mother/child institutions, they were regarded as a private arrangement between a family and their religion,
and they saved the state a fortune.

[trileacman]

While the unmarried pregnant women were sent to these institutions, then abused by those running the institutions and babies and mothers were dying in atrocious conditions, what was the equivalent in the North.  The attitudes in the North towards unmarried pregnant women were no different so what happened?

Same thing but perhaps just not as prevalent. Nazareth house in Derry was a mother and baby home I believe but I'm open to correction on that. Also it would have to be said that in the period 1930-1960 Northern Ireland would not have been just as impoverished as the West of Ireland with probably a better health and social protection systems. 1950's Tuam, I would say, would have been a particularly backward and impoverished place, no offence intended. The conditions and attitudes in the Eastern mother and baby homes would have been better than in the poorer West, perhaps the statement during the week that the Donnybrook home gave Christian burials to the dead babies might be a reflection of this. I'm not saying that the conditions were good or proper but certain homes were probably worse than others, I'd say it's unlikely that all the homes were as bad as Tuam.