# 796 Irish babies in a septic tank



## The_Banker (5 Jun 2014)

How is it that almost 800 babies have been discovered dumped in a septic tank and there is no criminal investigation?

If this was Bosnia, Iraq, Chile or Afghanistan  the UN would be investigating. 

Bob Geldof was right all those years ago. Banana Republic, Septic Isle.


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## Sunny (5 Jun 2014)

The_Banker said:


> How is it that almost 800 babies have been discovered dumped in a septic tank and there is no criminal investigation?
> 
> If this was Bosnia, Iraq, Chile or Afghanistan  the UN would be investigating.
> 
> Bob Geldof was right all those years ago. Banana Republic, Septic Isle.



It's not even that there hasn't been an investigation but where was the media? This isn't a new story by all accounts but it is the first time I have heard about it. It's horrific and yet there is very little outrage. I don't understand it to be honest.


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## Protocol (6 Jun 2014)

Letters to Irish Times today about this.

http://www.irishtimes.com/debate/letters/mother-and-baby-home-deaths-1.1822008


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## The_Banker (6 Jun 2014)

I thought this article in todays Examiner (about a home in Cork) showed the harrowing circumstances women faced....

Expected to give birth without pain medication
One nun insisting that mother give birth without making noise
Allowed bleed after giving birth 
Children taken from mothers when they were three years old 
Mothers having to "work off their debt" to the nuns (indentured slavery?)


http://www.irishexaminer.com/irelan...-bessborough-271158.html#.U5Fzf8oD9LU.twitter

What a sick society.


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## Betsy Og (6 Jun 2014)

Makes you wonder if our buddies up North didnt have a point re Rome Rule & Priest-ridden. If those nuns arent toasting down below then the place doesnt exist. There's nothing quite so appalling as religious based evil (& I know CoI institutions were much the same, so there's no anti-catholic bias to the above rant). A blacker day for this little country than any bailout.


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## Firefly (6 Jun 2014)

For an institution that is so pro-life how come they have treated lives in their care as such?


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## Delboy (6 Jun 2014)

Firefly said:


> For an institution that is so pro-life how come they have treated lives in their care as such?



It seems to be all about getting 'boots on the ground'. Once they land, they're fair game


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## Purple (6 Jun 2014)

Betsy Og said:


> Makes you wonder if our buddies up North didnt have a point re Rome Rule & Priest-ridden. If those nuns arent toasting down below then the place doesnt exist. There's nothing quite so appalling as religious based evil (& I know CoI institutions were much the same, so there's no anti-catholic bias to the above rant). A blacker day for this little country than any bailout.



+1 to that. 
A plague on all their houses.


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## cremeegg (7 Jun 2014)

The Catholic Church among other Christian churches teaches that we are born with original sin.

It is not a huge step to babies in septic tanks.

But all this is 50 years ago. The question today is why do we let them run our schools?


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## Kerrigan (8 Jun 2014)

Betsy Og said:


> Makes you wonder if our buddies up North didnt have a point re Rome Rule & Priest-ridden. If those nuns arent toasting down below then the place doesnt exist. There's nothing quite so appalling as religious based evil (& I know CoI institutions were much the same, so there's no anti-catholic bias to the above rant). A blacker day for this little country than any bailout.



+ 1

Though as a member of the C.O.I we are are obliged to weekly recite at Service that we believe in one Holy Catholic Church.  I never quite did get a straight answer from the Vicar as to why this might be . .  because sure is light is day I have no interest whatsoever in the Roman Catholic Church and its barbarity.  I presume all C.O.I do not take this stance.


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## Time (8 Jun 2014)

People are still afraid of the RCC and their cohorts. I don't know why? It is time for the state to break all ties with them. Kick them out of the schools and hospitals. 

Around here the local priest goes around like he is lord of the manor with everyone tipping their cap to him. I for one don't and will openly tell him what I think of him and his organisation.


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## Kerrigan (8 Jun 2014)

They are being slowly weeded out of the education system but my only concern is the rise in the Educate Together schools.  Fantastic concept but I have had friends remove their children because they felt the Koran was very much at the forefront.  Are we replacing one dictatorship over another?


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## Duke of Marmalade (8 Jun 2014)

Betsy Og said:


> If those nuns arent toasting down below then the place doesnt exist.


Betsy, that is a dreadful comment not typical of your usually balanced posts. The worst that can be accused, so far as I can see, is malnutrition? Is that the nuns' fault? Do we blame African parents on the malnutrition of their children? Were the nuns living a life of luxury at the expense of the children in their care? If there was malnutrition the fault does not lie with the nuns, it lies with a society that didn't provide for them.


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## The_Banker (9 Jun 2014)

How many nuns in the same institutions died of malnutrition?


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Betsy, that is a dreadful comment not typical of your usually balanced posts. The worst that can be accused, so far as I can see, is malnutrition? Is that the nuns' fault? Do we blame African parents on the malnutrition of their children? Were the nuns living a life of luxury at the expense of the children in their care? If there was malnutrition the fault does not lie with the nuns, it lies with a society that didn't provide for them.


I think it’s widely accepted that the state was ultimately responsible for the welfare of children in care in the state and that it outsourced the function to a wholly unsuitable organisation. That in no way negates the responsibility of the people or institutions in question to behave in a humane and appropriate manner. If children were literally starving to death in their care it was 100% the responsibility of the Bon Secour order to do something about it. This is an order that came to Ireland after the famine to help starving people and 100 years later they let babies die of malnutrition in their care. Mortality rates of over 50% were never the norm in 20th century Ireland. This was an international order, part of a Catholic Church that was not backward about raising issues relating to their twisted version of morality. They obviously didn’t think half of the children in their care dying was worth making a fuss about.


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## geri (9 Jun 2014)

Its not just about the babies and children found in mass graves, its also about forcibly removing babies from their mothers and selling them. Some of these women have never come to terms with this and never will. Imagine feeling that loss for your whole life. The whole thing is just disgusting.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Until the late 60's 97% of children born outside marriage in this country were "given up" for adoption.


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## Sunny (9 Jun 2014)

It's a bit easy to simply blame the Church and a few evil nuns for this. For this to occur, the Authorities and Society in general would have had to have turned their backs and ignored what was going on behind those walls. Thankfully I am too young but I was talking to my mother about it and she said the only new thing from this story for her was the disgusting way the children were buried. She says everyone knew back then that these women and children were being mistreated but it was never talked about. It was just brushed under the rug like always in Ireland. This is a scandal for Irish society and it is a dark chapter that we all have to face up to instead of looking for bogey men to blame. 

It would be interesting to see how future generations judge us for the way we deal with certain issues.

EDIT: I see in the Irish Times that the woman who researched this is not happy with the reporting that babies were dumped in a septic tank. She denies ever saying that. Wonder if this story has run away with itself.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

Sunny said:


> EDIT: I see in the Irish Times that the woman who researched this is not happy with the reporting that babies were dumped in a septic tank. She denies ever saying that. Wonder if this story has run away with itself.


It absolutely has - OP herself compares what happened to Bosnia etc. _Betsy Og_ (normally sensible) hopes the nuns rot in hell. About 10 stories in the Sindo from Emer O'Kelly to Gene Kerrigan outdoing themselves in demonization of the nuns. We have been easily provoked by a British newspaper raking up in hysterical terms what has actually been publicly known, even discussed in Dail Eireann, for at least 80 years. At last a sign of someone breaking ranks - Ho Chi Quinn is condemning the international hysteria. He, like the nuns, welcomes an enquiry. And I expect that just as for Bethany we will get a much more contextualised interpretation of these events.

A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the _"County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance."_ And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money.

_Purple_ describes the State as outsourcing this problem of society. Good analogy. How many takers would there have been at £1 per week? The nuns were the only takers in town, and now we damn them to rot in hell for taking on the job.

This whole sordid mess was of course a product of a suffocating confessional society. But don't just blame the Pope of Rome and his clergy. Blame De Valera, blame Padraic Pearse, blame the vast majority of the citizenry who wallowed in this stifling culture. Scapegoating the nuns and asking why they didn't die of malnutrition is a grotesque cop out.


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## Sunny (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> It absolutely has - OP herself compares what happened to Bosnia etc. _Betsy Og_ (normally sensible) hopes the nuns rot in hell. About 10 stories in the Sindo from Emer O'Kelly to Gene Kerrigan outdoing themselves in demonization of the nuns. We have been easily provoked by a British newspaper raking up in hysterical terms what has actually been publicly known, even discussed in Dail Eireann, for at least 80 years. At last a sign of someone breaking ranks - Ho Chi Quinn is condemning the international hysteria. He, like the nuns, welcomes an enquiry. And I expect that just as for Bethany we will get a much more contextualised interpretation of these events.
> 
> A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the _"County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance."_ And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money.
> 
> ...


 
Good points.


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## Latrade (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> This whole sordid mess was of course a product of a suffocating confessional society. But don't just blame the Pope of Rome and his clergy. Blame De Valera, blame Padraic Pearse, blame the vast majority of the citizenry who wallowed in this stifling culture. Scapegoating the nuns and asking why they didn't die of malnutrition is a grotesque cop out.


 
I agree perspective is needed, but that perspective needs to include all aspects of how these institutions were run and what went on. Certainly the conditions and how they arose and the culture that let them arise is one issue, but so is the culture of those who run the place that felt it ok to place/dump dead children into a spetic tank that was in use without any record of death or burial.

The other issue that is harder to ignore though is the focus here on this being an Irish problem. It isn't. And that sort of casts some doubt on where ire should be directed. Without doubt the state was complacent in all the issues, but then it's hard to understand why there would be similar issues in the Nun run institutions in Australia and America. I didn't know the influence of the Irish state extended quite so far and also countries not noted for their overwhelming Catholic influence on state affairs.

Or is the common factor Irish Catholic Institutions?

The "placing" of babies in unmarked, undocumented graves is indicative of several things and this does include the tacit acceptance by the state and society. But it is indicative of a greater influence and culture across all church run insitutions and not just here, everywhere they operated. 

Whether we look to blame the Pope or De Valera is up to individuals, but De Valera didn't exploit the Vatican's status as a separate state to remove all documentation on abuse and conditions in instutions immediately prior to the various inquiries in diplomatic pouches so that they couldn't be seized. 

I'd be inclined to apportion blame across all those involved, tacit or direct if it were just an Irish problem. Every where there was an institution, there was abuse. 

Look to the common denominator in that fact. It isn't the Irish State or the Irish people.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

_Latrade_, the whole truth of this will be very difficult to disentangle and possibly will not be an objective absolute but rather open to various subjective assessments. 

You know the old statistics rubric - "just because most people die in bed does not mean that bed is a dangerous place". 

Similarly, just because these misfortunate rejected members of society finish up in the care of religious institutions does not necessarily mean that religious institutions are responsible for their misfortune or their rejection.


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## The_Banker (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> It absolutely has - OP herself compares what happened to Bosnia etc. _Betsy Og_ (normally sensible) hopes the nuns rot in hell. About 10 stories in the Sindo from Emer O'Kelly to Gene Kerrigan outdoing themselves in demonization of the nuns. We have been easily provoked by a British newspaper raking up in hysterical terms what has actually been publicly known, even discussed in Dail Eireann, for at least 80 years. At last a sign of someone breaking ranks - Ho Chi Quinn is condemning the international hysteria. He, like the nuns, welcomes an enquiry. And I expect that just as for Bethany we will get a much more contextualised interpretation of these events.
> 
> A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the _"County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance."_ And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money.
> 
> ...


 

The state certainly outsourced the problem and society as a whole must take its fair share of the blame.
I would definately hold De Valera and all leaders in the country to account as they effectivily over saw the the outsourcing. While Padraic Pearse can be blamed for many things, I wouldnt hold him to account on this one as he was shot in 1916 before the Free State came into being.

With regards the payment the religious institutions recieved for looking after children. There have been various figures bandied about. Some reports are saying £1 a week per child where as other reports are saying it was the equivilent of the average industrial wage per year.
Either way, an inquiry will get to the bottom of this. I have heard/read that different institutions tendered for the ability to set up mother and child homes. Again, an inquiry will get to the bottom of this. 
I would hope that any inquiry would be chaired from someone outside the state....
It was known that medical trials were carried out on children in these institutions back in 2000 but there was no inquiry as an objection was raised by religious orders because they felt the result was already pre ordained as it was part of the "child abuse investigation" and they subsequently won the high court action. It died there.
Did religious get paid for allowing trials take place on the children under their care?

In past investigations while the religious institutions "welcomed" it they were very slow to offer data/files or full cooperation once the inquiry was under way.
They are not slow to hire public relations companies to get their side of the story across.

A point above highlighted that 97% of children born outside wedlock were put up for adoption.
I wonder did those who never entered an institution get money for putting their child up for adoption? 
Or the money the nuns recieved from Americans for adopting children.... Did any of that cash filter down to the mother of the child?

I think it is a fair question ask how many nuns died of malnutrition... Considering Ireland suffered more in the 1930s during the Great Depression than other countries due to the added effects of self imposed isolation and the Economic War with Great Britain, families in Ireland with in excess of 10 children still managed to ensure none of their children died of malnutrition.
Added to the fact that religious orders see themselves as doing Gods work I personally want to know how they could eat their dinner at night when children under their care died of malnutrition?


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## Latrade (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Similarly, just because these misfortunate rejected members of society finish up in the care of religious institutions does not necessarily mean that religious institutions are responsible for their misfortune or their rejection.


 
Hmmm, that is going to depend entirely on many things though; such as the sale of babies to America as one example.

Of course, all undocumented and the child sold as an orphan even when their mother was working right there in the same building as them. But if these sales worked out quite nicely in terms of money (always through a third party charity of course), then the expansion of the institutions from primarily helping prostitutes and the mentally ill to large scale "illegitimate" pregnancies would have a more sinister feel to it. 

Or just how the volume of those rejected increased with an increase in the number of institutions. You're right though probably a coincidence or a mere correlation rather than causation. But then, this was around the time when there was a peak in selling babies to America, and let's not forget that the slave labour aspect of the mothers was working out quite handy too. But it would be foolish to conclude anything other than it was the Irish State and it's people who rejected these mothers and babies. The increase in numbers needing the "care" of these institutions was as a result of an increase in immoral behaviour. 

Same in Australia and America. 

That or the perception and rejection of the mothers and babies (at an unprecident rate in any other time in history) was fuelled by church influence at mass and at a political level as nothing more than a "moral" driven supply and demand issue.


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## Latrade (9 Jun 2014)

The_Banker said:


> The state certainly outsourced the problem and society as a whole must take its fair share of the blame.
> I would definately hold De Valera and all leaders in the country to account as they effectivily over saw the the outsourcing.


 
Just on this issue. I agree with all your other points, but I feel that we are perhaps apportioning too much blame onto the state and it's people. As stated in my other post: the abuse and mistreatment wasn't isolated to Ireland, it was everywhere the church was allowed to run such institutions.

To take a slight digression for a second on something I am qualified to comment on and that is influencing social policy. To quote Lord of the Rings: One does not simply walk into Mordor.

One does not simply walk into the office of a minister and get such deep tacit acceptance of abuse. Simply, this isn't an issue of all these individual institutions acting independently and a state willingly turning a blind eye, for such widespread and global abuse it requires a more focussed and highlevel lobbying. 

For all this to have been ignored by the state for so long, it couldn't have even been the Bon Secours or local priest who has asked for help in the silence and it certainly isn't independent ministers acting on their own whims to keep it hidden, it is focussed lobbying. 

The influence to indemnify the pharmaceutical industry against the swine flu vaccine didn't come from local pharmacists and GPs who would administer it, it came from very highly paid lobbyists and senior representatives of the pharma industry. 

For so many states across the world to tacitly accept such abuses clearly shows that this wasn't just local state politicians acting on whatever conscience they had, it was a clear policy and lobbying of that policy by senior and influencial members of the central organisation.

If it were that easy to influence politicians at a local and independent level, there'd be no need for any lobbying industry or trade federation and yet it exists and is very effective. 

If every other aspect of social policy is influenced by organised and high-level representations by federations, NGOs and Industries, then why do we not assume the same of the church? For such a complete common world-wide policy of political indifference and assistance in covering up abuse, it can only be from a central policy.

And on that, when it comes to the issues and indemnification from swine flu, we do apportion blame on the government, but much more has been written and discussed about those who lobbied for it. Same with any similar political interference on policy, our biggest ire is reserved for those institutions who brought on the influence.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Being aware of the lack of oversight and funding for the care of children is one thing; we are all aware of the suffering of those in famine situations or the mistreatment of people in North Korea etc.. The is a world of a difference between that and being the person who takes a baby away from it's mother to sell it to strangers n another land or the person who sees, hears and smells the hunger and suffering of babies as they die of malnutrition. Most of us would, at the very least, kick up a fuss. I don't remember anyone from these orders making any protests about the deaths of so many children in their care. I don't hear any of them citing any retrospective remorse. 

The "Munich defence" doesn't stand.


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## cremeegg (9 Jun 2014)

I am sorry but the pre-occupation with the past in the above posts is futile.

Always in this country we talk about the past.

The only thing we can do for the past is learn from it. Throw the church out of education today.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

cremeegg said:


> I am sorry but the pre-occupation with the past in the above posts is futile.
> 
> Always in this country we talk about the past.
> 
> The only thing we can do for the past is learn from it. Throw the church out of education today.



The RC Church in Ireland, just like Ireland as a whole, is not the same beast it was 50 years ago. The ordinary members cannot be held forever guilty for the sins of those in the past. That is of course conditional on seeing that they accept their historical sins. The same though applies to the rest of us.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

There are lots of strands to this horror story. One strand is the RC ethos which rejected these mothers and their babies from their family surrounds in social stigma. I'm parking that one and concentrating on the current hysterical demonization of the nuns in whose care these misfortunates finally finished. 

_Latrade_ and others persist in the use of the word "abuse", the direct implication being that if they had been in the care of any other institution with the same resources everything would have been honky dory; the blame lies with the abuse meted out by the nuns. 

I doubt that narrative will withstand any fair enquiry. Ireland of the 20s and 30s was a pretty dire place. De Valera's smug plunging of the country into an economic war with Britain meant an impoverished nation became even more so - my guess is even more impoverished than those countries in Africa today where infant mortality is still unacceptably high.

Infant mortality in Dublin was over 10% in the general population. The big killer was infectious diseases. These would be of multiplied severity in a circumstance of communal surroundings with inadequate resources available for food or indeed medicines. An outbreak of measles, for example, in such an environment could wipe out scores of babies. 

My guess is that the enquiry will reveal that most of these nuns were doing their best by their own standards in intolerable circumstances. The real scandal is why did society dump so many mothers and their babies in these homes and not the behaviour of the nuns who had the most unenviable task of looking after these rejects in hopelessly inadequate conditions.

Let's please forget the septic tank motif. 25% infant mortality is practically war zone stuff - difficult to give them all a send off with full ceremonial pomp.


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## Firefly (9 Jun 2014)

Purple said:


> They obviously didn’t think half of the children in their care dying was worth making a fuss about.



I was thinking this very thing yesterday during a long drive. Imagine the nuns tucking into their Sunday roast while a few rooms away there were children starving. All the time doing God's work? I appreciate it that the State was ultimately responsible but just like the paedophile priest situation, how come none of the "good" nuns did anything about it ?


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## cremeegg (9 Jun 2014)

Purple said:


> The RC Church in Ireland, just like Ireland as a whole, is not the same beast it was 50 years ago.



What makes you think this. I think it is exactly the same power seeking organisation it always was. My local school is about to appoint a new head teacher. Who do you think will choose the candidate. The parents?, the teachers?, the board of management?. No chance, none of these will be involved.

The Church will appoint the new head teacher with no requirement to discuss with anybody.



Purple said:


> The ordinary members cannot be held forever guilty for the sins of those in the past.



I agree. I just want to end the involvement of the institution in the education of young people. They have proven they are not fit.


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## Kerrigan (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the _"County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance."_ And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money



Does the _£1_ include the money they were in receipt of from their laundry services?  All achieved on the backs of slave labour.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> De Valera's smug plunging of the country into an economic war with Britain meant an impoverished nation became even more so



It's off topic but I'm not a big fan of that revisionist view of things given that the annuities paid by this country, effectively to buy our own land from the British, amounted to 12% of total tax revenue at the time. This was a massive burden at the time and was both financially crippling and morally wrong.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> The real scandal is why did society dump so many mothers and their babies in these homes and not the behaviour of the nuns who had the most unenviable task of looking after these rejects in hopelessly inadequate conditions.


Good point.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

Kerrigan said:


> Does the _£1_ include the money they were in receipt of from their laundry services? All achieved on the backs of slave labour.


The indentured labour and the selling of babies to Americans are of course also strands in this sorry saga. 

However, I cannot buy into any theory which holds that this was a massive commercial exploitation on the part of the nuns for self enrichment. More likely any additional sources of income were used to supplement the hopelessly inadequate conscience money from the State, and by the State I mean society as a whole. 

The real issue with the "nuns' strand" is, given the resources and conditions they had at their disposal was their own behaviour the main or even a significant contributor to the appalling infant death rates? That's the issue, not the nature of the interment of these poor rejects of society.

_Purple_, I am not expert on the financial/political calculus of the annuities/economic war business. But my main point is that Ireland of those times had poverty levels on a par with what we now call Third World countries.


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## The_Banker (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> The indentured labour and the selling of babies to Americans are of course also strands in this sorry saga.
> 
> However, I cannot buy into any theory which holds that this was a massive commercial exploitation on the part of the nuns for self enrichment. More likely any additional sources of income were used to supplement the hopelessly inadequate conscience money from the State, and by the State I mean society as a whole.
> 
> The real issue with the "nuns' strand" is, given the resources and conditions they had at their disposal was their own behaviour the main or even a significant contributor to the appalling infant death rates? That's the issue, not the nature of the interment of these poor rejects of society.


 

I would contend that any money made from adoptions, working in laundries etc was used to build up the catholic church. How else did they become the largest property owning organisation in Ireland (before NAMA)?
While people are now casting doubt on some of the stories coming out of the homes from the media, one fact is inescapable.

Children died from malnutrition. 

It is on the death certs of some of the 796 children who died in Tuam between 1925 and 1961. 

How could the richest organisation in Ireland at that time allow children in there care to die from malnutrition? An organisation who preached love, kindness and devotion to the ideals of This post will be deleted if not edited immediately? 

Apologists for the church also cast doubt on the stories coming out in the early 90s regarding sexual abuse committed by priests and covered up by church authorities to protect the power and authority of the church.
The church only released documents and information begrudgingly after inquiries were set up. 

The quicker an independent inquiry is established the better. Hopefully whoever is appointed will be from outside this country.


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## Time (9 Jun 2014)

Part of the problem is people are still attending mass and giving the organisation money. They need to be starved of attention and money.

It is all well and good for people to give out about the RC but yet they continue to suck up to them. By attending their rituals they are giving approval for what they do.


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## Purple (9 Jun 2014)

Time said:


> Part of the problem is people are still attending mass and giving the organisation money. They need to be starved of attention and money.
> 
> It is all well and good for people to give out about the RC but yet they continue to suck up to them. By attending their rituals they are giving approval for what they do.



Speaking as an atheist I find that very unfair.
There are people who believe in the message and the core teachings of the Church. There is no reason to reject the message because of the transgressions of the messengers.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

The_Banker said:


> Children died from malnutrition.


This is getting repetitive.  Is it your contention that the nuns had adequate resources to properly feed their cares but purloined those resources for their own gratification?


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## Sunny (9 Jun 2014)

I agree. I was horrified when I read about this last week and that I hadn't heard anything about it. Turns out this story has been out for years. There is tons of well written research but the media have latched on to dramatic headlines like deaths by malnutrition. What they don't explain is the context that these deaths happened. Most of it was due to ignorance about breast feeding and baby nutrition. This was the early 20th century. The mortality rate of all babies was extremely high in Ireland. It was higher in these homes because you had a load of babies and adults in a confined space. Neo natal units weren't exactly common. There is no evidence from what I have seen to suggest that children were starved to death deliberately. 
I am not saying truly horrific things didn't happen and I am not religious so couldnt care less about defending the church but people need to read past the headlines. In a 100 years time, people will be reading how we make women give birth to babies to watch them die in pain or else slip over to the UK like common criminals.


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## The_Banker (9 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> This is getting repetitive.  Is it your contention that the nuns had adequate resources to properly feed their cares but purloined those resources for their own gratification?




Yes.


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## Duke of Marmalade (9 Jun 2014)

The_Banker said:


> Yes.



Well that is infanticide, motive self enrichment. You have clearly bought the line that the British Mail is peddling. 

We certainly need an enquiry to address that vile accusation. If the enquiry finds that the nuns used the £1 a week to dine on wood pigeon and caviar washed down with fine wines then the State would have a moral right to do a Henry VIII and confiscate all the Church's property. The churches could then be converted into offices for the civil service.


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## Latrade (10 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Well that is infanticide, motive self enrichment. You have clearly bought the line that the British Mail is peddling.
> 
> We certainly need an enquiry to address that vile accusation. If the enquiry finds that the nuns used the £1 a week to dine on wood pigeon and caviar washed down with fine wines then the State would have a moral right to do a Henry VIII and confiscate all the Church's property. The churches could then be converted into offices for the civil service.


 
In that context, the average industrial wage at the time of the £1 per child payment was £3. Today's equivallent would be AIW of €803.98 p/w and €268 per child. Also bear in mind that this was a time of overcrowding and essentially slums in housing areas too. 

However, based on a dad earning £3 per week and this probably going towards food, clothing and rent for a family of at least 4, there was still an infant mortality rate half that of the Mother and Child homes.

However, the £1 per child isn't the case because the stipend was for the child and mother which worked out to the average industrial wage. They essentially got £1 for the child, but £2 for the mother. 

The other context is:

CICA report (Vol iii) lists the cases of physcial, mental and sexual abuse at institutions. It lists evidence of maltreatment. 

We have recorded witness testimony of nuns putting pillows over a child's face to stop it from crying (it was hungry). Mothers forced to work in laundries and cleaning while heavily pregnant and immediately after birth. The healthy children being put work which the nuns charged money for. 

Mothers and children forced to work for money paid only to the homes despite the stipend being equal to the industrial wage that families had to survive on alone (and appeared to survive better than those in the homes).

Then you have the disposal of babies into an in use septic tank. It was too much to even dig a separate hole for the mass burial.

Taken into the greater context than the burial of babies it is clear that there was abuse (physical, mental and sexual) at these institutions. 

It is clear that those homed there were seen as inhumane and lacking the same attention or respect as other humans.

It is clear that on death, this view carried through to how the remains were treated.

Yet we are expected to believe that despite this whole record of abuse and mistreatement, those in charge of the homes did their best on £1 per child and couldn't do anything or any more about the mortality rate?

The weight of evidence is completely against such a conclusion.


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## Purple (10 Jun 2014)

Superb post Latrade, even by your usual high standards.


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## Sunny (10 Jun 2014)

Latrade said:


> In that context, the average industrial wage at the time of the £1 per child payment was £3. Today's equivallent would be AIW of €803.98 p/w and €268 per child. Also bear in mind that this was a time of overcrowding and essentially slums in housing areas too.
> 
> However, based on a dad earning £3 per week and this probably going towards food, clothing and rent for a family of at least 4, there was still an infant mortality rate half that of the Mother and Child homes.
> 
> ...


 
Nobody is disputing that terrible things happened but once again people are drawing conclusions based on the media's recent fascination with the story and their dramatic headlines.

Read the proper story. Even Catherine Corless has said that the nature of the burial of the children and even the causes of death in many cases have been misrepresented. She never said 796 babies were abused, starved, murdered or dumped into a septic tank. 

Have an inquiry and come up with the facts but people should stop reaching conclusions based on headlines and stop judging everything through 21st Century eyes. As I said before, we can all get up on our high moral horse about how these poor women and children were treated but maybe we should we look at ourselves and see how we treat some women and children ourselves. As Fintan O'Toole says, have a look at how we house asylum seeking children today and then tell me how people are going to judge us in 100 years.


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## Duke of Marmalade (10 Jun 2014)

Nice one, _Sunny_, I am trying to avoid defending the indefensible and am certainly no supporter of the suffocating Catholic ethos, but you have expressed it well - we should look for the facts not hysterical caricatures.

_Latrade_, it is always difficult to compare the domestic economics of quite different periods. Here is a spreadsheet of UK prices of food and other things going back. Given that we tracked the British Pound it is a reasonable indicator of RoI data. I pick out one in particular. The price of a pint of milk increased from 7.3 in 1955 to 35 in 2004. So in the currency of pints of milk (which seems relevant to me) £1 per week in 1955 was the equivalent of £5 per week in 2004. A contemporary commentator described the payment as a "pittance". And this was 1955. What was it like in 1935 in the middle of the economic war? I think arguments that these institutions were money making abuse centres detracts from the case. I hope that an enquiry probes the finances of these institutions. My guess is that not withstanding the indentured labour and the baby exports and the State subsidy they were probably further subsidised from the Sunday collections and the nuns were not wallowing in a life of luxury. I also think that reference to sexual abuse in the context of nuns dealing with infants must be very wide of the mark.

I doubt that any enquiry will find that the nuns were predators seeking out mothers and babies for financial exploitation and sexual gratification.

A more correct interpretation is that society dumped its problem at the hands of the nuns and expected them to get by on a pittance of conscience money.


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## Latrade (10 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Nice one, _Sunny_, I am trying to avoid defending the indefensible and am certainly no supporter of the suffocating Catholic ethos, but you have expressed it well - we should look for the facts not hysterical caricatures.
> 
> _Latrade_, it is always difficult to compare the domestic economics of quite different periods. Here is a spreadsheet of UK prices of food and other things going back. Given that we tracked the British Pound it is a reasonable indicator of RoI data. I pick out one in particular. The price of a pint of milk increased from 7.3 in 1955 to 35 in 2004. So in the currency of pints of milk (which seems relevant to me) £1 per week in 1955 was the equivalent of £5 per week in 2004. A contemporary commentator described the payment as a "pittance". And this was 1955. What was it like in 1935 in the middle of the economic war? I think arguments that these institutions were money making abuse centres detracts from your case. I hope that an enquiry probes the finances of these institutions. My guess is that not withstanding the indentured labour and the baby exports and the State subsidy they were probably further subsidised from the Sunday collections and the nuns were not wallowing in a life of luxury. I also think that reference to sexual abuse in the context of nuns dealing with infants must be very wide of the mark.
> 
> ...


 
The economic comparisson was that the nuns recieved the average industrial wage to take care of the mother and child. This is the same average industrial wage that families had to survive on and in many cases in much much worse and deprived conditions. 

I reject the argument or supposition that there is any hysterical caricatures in my post. The issue of those housed in the homes working is not disputed in any report. The fact that children were also asked to work is also not disputed. The fact that they worked indentured labour/slavory for money paid to the homes is also not disputed. 

I never said they lived in luxury, at least to my recollection, but it is indesputable that they recieved the stipend while making the mother and child work to "pay" for their time there (even though the nuns were paid the stipend for this) and that the stipend was supplimented by the labour.

The reference to all abuse (lets not just isolate sexual abuse) was from the  CICA report. However, if you wish remove the finding of sexual abuse and just leave it at physical abuse, mental abuse and maltreatment, then sobeit.

The point being that investigations have shown a specific picture of abuse and cruelty at all institutions. It is natural and not a hysteria to conclude that there was negligence and cruelty that played a part in the high mortality rate.

Sunny, I read the proper story, it seems to imply that there may "only" be 200 bodies in the septic tank. I fail to see how that in any way tempers the utter disrespect to those placed there. Also Catherine's main issue is that she never used the word "dumped". The IT article was 3 pages around her research, how she never actually said "dumped" (does it matter what verb is used for this act?) and all without once mentioning the church.

As to Fintan's comments; why can't we do both? Why can't we judge how these mothers and babies were treated and judge how we treat asylum seakers too? 

Former residents at these institutions are still alive and have been judged all their lives. They've been called liars. In some cases those involved in running the institutions are still alive.

I reject the argument that just because it happened to a different generation that we shouldn't judge. I'm not judging through 21st century eyes, I'm judging from a humanitarian's eyes. 

This wasn't the dark ages where all involved are dust in the ground, many are still alive today. 

It was a different time, but also better that we use any outrage to judge ourselves and our attitudes to any institutionalised abuse. Our treatment of the mentally ill and the stigma attached to mental illness has hardly improved from then.

Catherine Corless isn't the only source on what happened in the Mother and Baby Homes. Many have tried to get heard for years, even when there was acceptance of the abuse at laundries and other institutions, this one area was ignored and stigmatised. 

Just because the Mail is leading with it, doesn't mean its all hyperbole. We ignored it and the Irish media ignored it until the point when they couldn't any more. Sometimes it takes this one incident (even one so old) to get full public attention.

And as I said in an earlier post, the same issues are found across the world wherever we had these institutions. I do not accept that it is simply an Irish or an Irish state issue.


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## Sunny (10 Jun 2014)

Latrade said:


> The economic comparisson was that the nuns recieved the average industrial wage to take care of the mother and child. This is the same average industrial wage that families had to survive on and in many cases in much much worse and deprived conditions.
> 
> I reject the argument or supposition that there is any hysterical caricatures in my post. The issue of those housed in the homes working is not disputed in any report. The fact that children were also asked to work is also not disputed. The fact that they worked indentured labour/slavory for money paid to the homes is also not disputed.
> 
> ...


 
Why do you think the media suddenly woke up to this story in the past week? This story has been around for years. The reason this story was picked up my worldwide media was the fact that we seemed to have a story about 796 babies dumped in a septic tank and evil nuns who starved hundrerds of children to death.

Again, no-one is denying that terrible things happened. No-one is defending the Catholic Church. No-one is defending a cruel and sadistic society that turned their backs on these women and babies for decades. All I saying is that if you read this thread and other media reports, it is clear that people are jumping up and down with outrage when the facts are not not yet clearly established. 

The Septic Tank angle is a perfect example. It has not even been verified that it was a septic tank. Mass graves for babies who died at childbirth are not exclusive to these homes either. Indeed people are rightly outraged at the lack of respect shown to the dead babies and yet it wasn't exactly 100 years ago that we had our own national maternity hospital admit they kept dead babies organs without parents consent. I don't remember people saying that they hoped the doctors and nurses involved rotted in hell for the lack of repsect shown to babies bodies. 

The starving babies is the other aspect of the story that has got the most media coverage and yet we have no idea how many babies died of malnutrition and how that compared to the national average considering what was known about breastfeeding and baby nutriants at the time. We know the mortality rate was twice as high in some of these homes but again we don't know how much of this was down to infections spreading easier in a confined spaces with hundreds of other babies and adults. 

I was horrified when I read this story but when I read more into it, it is clear that the facts have not been established and I would like to hear the full story before we start adding infanticide of a nazi concentration camp scale to the list of religious orders crimes in this Country.


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## Duke of Marmalade (10 Jun 2014)

_Latrade_, it's hard to get a fix on what £1 a week was worth. This article would seem to suggest that an infant could do rather well on £1 a week and yet we have that contemporary view that it was a "pittance".

I still firmly suspect that lack of resources, for which society at large was to blame, had a lot to do with the malnutrition.


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## Sophrosyne (11 Jun 2014)

Latrade said:


> Sunny, I read the proper story, it seems to imply that there may "only" be 200 bodies in the septic tank. I fail to see how that in any way tempers the utter disrespect to those placed there. Also Catherine's main issue is that she never used the word "dumped". The IT article was 3 pages around her research, how she never actually said "dumped" (does it matter what verb is used for this act?) and all without once mentioning the church.


 
You might need to read the article again.

"Between them the boys levered up the slab. “There were skeletons thrown in there. They were all this way and that way. They weren’t wrapped in anything, and there were no coffins,” he says. “But there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number. I don’t know where the papers got that.” How many skeletons does he believe there were? “About 20.”

and

“Even if a number of children are indeed interred in what was once a sewage tank, horrific as that thought is, there cannot be 796 of them. The public water scheme came to Tuam in 1937. Between 1925, when the home opened, and 1937 the tank remained in use. During that period 204 children died at the home. Corless admits that it now seems impossible to her that more than 200 bodies could have been put in a working sewage tank.”


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## Latrade (11 Jun 2014)

Sophrosyne said:


> You might need to read the article again.
> 
> "Between them the boys levered up the slab. “There were skeletons thrown in there. They were all this way and that way. They weren’t wrapped in anything, and there were no coffins,” he says. “But there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number. I don’t know where the papers got that.” How many skeletons does he believe there were? “About 20.”
> 
> ...


 
Which is what I said. 

Sunny, the assumption seems to be that just because I hold the opinion that negligence (deliberate or otherwise) played a part in the high death rate that I also buy every aspect of the Daily Mail's story. 

Not everyone who is angered by the story (and the numerous factual reports and anecdotal evidence of residents) and has come to the same conclusion is just buying media hype. I'd have hoped for some of us, maybe on this forum, we've not displayed a tendancy in the past to leap to extreme reactions based upon the say so of a notoriously anti-Irish, facist newspaper report.

So that when we point to reports that demonstrate actual neglect (even when there was a lack of cooperation from institutions) and find it hard to believe that it was ok to smother babies to stop them crying, strike them, scratch them, make them work long hours, send them to be the "help" for a visiting priest who was a know sexual offender and treated the instutions like a child brothel (all recorded reports) and on death of the child didn't even register the plot of land they were using as a grave (as required by law) or who they put into the grave, that this doesn't demonstrate a pattern of behaviour that might suggest the wellbeing and health of these children wasn't a priority.

If you run a care home and look after children and the health and wellbeing of that child isn't your priority (and I don't mean the pattern of making a child do pennance for the imorality of its conception) then that, to me at least, is neglect. And if you knowingly neglect a child as such, I'm sorry but that to me is evil.

The comparisson that is being missed and ignored while the defence of the high death rate is given is how does it compare to the Dublin slums? Overcrowded, abject poverty, not even amenities, no jobs, or seldom casual labour at way below the average industrial wage (£3, the same stipend the homes got for mother and child). 

We can agree that the conditions between the tenements and the M&B homes were worlds apart at least? One being utter depravation, the other offering some comfort?

Also, not untypical would be 17 families in one home. that could work out at over 800 people in one street. A typical MB home catered for around 50-100.

In every way and by every measure the life and conditions at the tenements were far worse than the conditions and resources at the MB home. 

Yet. 

The infant mortality rate was the same.

So the M&B homes had a decent stiped (at least compared to those who lived in tenements), were nowhere near as crowded, had better access medical assistance, had further income from its contracted work and it had the same infant mortality rate as a slum.


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## Kimmagegirl (11 Jun 2014)

My own son and his partner had a baby in the early 2000's. My elderly father was horrified that his great grandchild was born outside of marriage and never asked about the baby and even stopped asking after my son, his grandson. (Then he conveniently didn't have to ask after the baby). When I challenged him about not asking after his grandson he replied that "how was he expected to remember all his grandchildren". He had 7 at the time.
I often wonder why my father held on to the views of 1940/50's Ireland despite living through the 60's, 70's, 80's. 90's and into the 00's himself.


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## Duke of Marmalade (11 Jun 2014)

_Latrade_

We have come a long way in this thread from OPs comparisons with mass ethnic cleansing to asking why M&C Homes were no better than Dublin slums.

Meanwhile we have been duped by an "anti Irish, fascist" (your words) British newspaper into digging into all aspects of this going back over 80 years, even into comparatively trivial issues about why adoptions did not follow the Queensbury rules.

The nuns welcome the enquiry and I don't think that is tongue in cheek. I think a fair enquiry will properly contextualise all these matters.

Why do you keep dragging in paedo priests? Now that is a whole different ball game for which there is no contextualisation possible.

Nuns I sense were, by and large, themselves victims of the oppressive culture of the times.


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## Latrade (11 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> _Latrade_
> 
> We have come a long way in this thread from OPs comparisons with mass ethnic cleansing to asking why M&C Homes were no better than Dublin slums.
> 
> ...


 
I compared it to slums because that represented the worst possible conditions imaginable to raise a child at the same period in time as the M&C homes. They had the same infant mortality rate, yet I don't think any person would say that the resources and facilities available to the nuns was at the same level of the tenements, yet they had comparable infant mortality rates. 

I'm dragging peado priests into it because you initially questioned why I used the term abuse and I referenced the CICA report that lists the abuse in institutions. This is separated into physical, mental, negligence and sexual. I can't just leave out the issue of documented sexual abuse that occurred in all the institutions just because it is uncomfortable. It doesn't devalue the argument as it is part of large scale documented pattern of abuse and neglect that is indicative of the attitude of those in charge as to the human value of the people they were responsible for. 

It has context because the CICA report puts all abuse in into the same context. It has context because it is again indicative of a culture and belief that the individuals subjected to abuse were not worthy of basic humanitarian treatment. The nuns may not have taken part in the sexual abuse, but they facilitated it and tacitly allowed it to occur. Again, it is indicative of the view of those responsible for the care of these children.

I do not just focus on the sexual abuse, note that I always mention it in the context of the complete range of abuse that was common at these institutions. It supports the conclusion that given the widespread and wide ranging abuse, on the balance of probabilities it seems unlikely that the health and wellbeing of the children was a high priority. Unless it was ok to smother, hit, beat, scratch, humiliate and work to exhaustion children and pregnant women but they made sure they had a good meal. 

I used those words about the mail because that is how I view the mail. it doesn't devalue the argument. It's a pity that as a nation it took the mail to get our attention to this issue, no matter how much they exaggerated the story. I doubt the nuns or anyone in the church hierarchy would have called for an investigation if it wasn't for the mail not dropping the issue. 

And I'm sorry, but the issue of the adoptions is not trivial and minor rule breaches. It involved church hierarchy lobbying ministers to exempt the M&C homes from the adoption legislation. It involved mothers being forced to enter the M&C home, but only being allowed to (where else could they go?) if they signed a form that away all rights to their child. It involved church run third parties to sell the babies in America. It involved no record at all of the adoption (they were exempted from that). In some cases mothers were lied to about where their child was. 

It was immoral and (prepare to more hyperbole) akin to human trafficking rather than a minor breach of adoption protocol. 

And I'm delighted that after 3 pages, we're now at the point where we have made the nuns the victims. Maybe we should have an investigation into how the nuns have suffered by people becoming infomed of the practices they took part in.


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## Duke of Marmalade (11 Jun 2014)

_Latrade_

 The extent to which RC bishops lobbied Irish ministers 80 years ago is of interest only to historians and those with an anti Irish, anti RC agenda.

 It is very much in the public interest to refute a malicious insinuation, now gone international, that Ireland had its own secret holocaust.

 In clearing its name of that ultimate crime against humanity we will unfortunately reveal to the world what we all here already knew.  Ireland back then was an impoverished, ignorant, intolerant, hyprocritical priest ridden society.


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## Sunny (11 Jun 2014)

Latrade, I agree 100% with everything you say but I do have problems with how this story is being picked up. Look at how it is being reported and why the discovery of these bodies have suddenly led to a commission to be set up. Why has it taken us so long? 

My point is that this story is being broadcast as a story about 796 babies who were dumped in a septic tank. I am not saying that is what you are focusing on but look at how it is been reported on. The truly horrific stories of individuals are in danger of getting lost because of the clamour over one aspect. 

For a start, we don't know for sure it was a septic tank. Secondly, while the idea of mass faces for babies is horrific today, they have been used in the past. There is plot in Glasnevin with over 50000 babies in it. Some Hospitals in the UK used mass burial sites up to the 1980's for still born babies or babies who died during childbirth. Often done without parents permission and some parents still don't know where their babies are buried. I am sure what hospitals here have done in the past but wouldn't be surprised if it was something similar. 

To say we don't have records of who is buried there is also not true as far as I know. All I have heard is that nuns said all records were handed over to the State when it closed. I don't know what records exists but considering we have death certs for the babies, it is obvious that records were kept. 

We also hear stories about starving babies but again, we don't know the facts. 

I have no doubt that babies died through neglect in these places but lets find out the facts that before we start accusing nuns who can't defend themselves of mass murder. 

Also, for those who think this was simply a problem in Religious Homes, I suggest you read about Ireland's problem with infanticide in 1920's or how many people took advantage of these children to obtain cheap labour when they left these schools. We can hide behind blaming the church for having power over us but every country has a shameful chapter in their history. We need to face ours.


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## Betsy Og (16 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> Betsy, that is a dreadful comment not typical of your usually balanced posts. The worst that can be accused, so far as I can see, is malnutrition? Is that the nuns' fault? Do we blame African parents on the malnutrition of their children? Were the nuns living a life of luxury at the expense of the children in their care? If there was malnutrition the fault does not lie with the nuns, it lies with a society that didn't provide for them.



I havent been in a position to read much beyond when the story first broke (or to follow this thread - so I might be missing some vital info), but as it was presented there were "dying rooms", i.e. the babies left to die. Maybe the cause of death was malnutrition but it was wilfully letting children die when you could have saved them - as opposed to an African type situation where they wasnt the food to feed them (with the best will in the world). So they fed the healthy ones and let those with Downs Syndrome or whatever just die.   

So that, to me, is fairly close to the definition of evil, and unless the story was mis-presented I dont think I need to apologise for surmising that those responsible have gone to their eternal "reward".


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## Duke of Marmalade (16 Jun 2014)

Betsy Og said:


> ... and unless the story was mis-presented ...


You bet Absolute max is 200 (if every single baby who died over the 20 odd years is involved) but the smart money is little more than 20 and they weren't "dumped in a septic tank". Admit it _Betsy_, you fell for what _Latrade_ would call a fascist, anti Irish smear.


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## Betsy Og (16 Jun 2014)

Duke of Marmalade said:


> You bet Absolute max is 200 (if every single baby who died over the 20 odd years is involved) but the smart money is little more than 20 and they weren't "dumped in a septic tank". Admit it _Betsy_, you fell for what _Latrade_ would call a fascist, anti Irish smear.



I dont rightly see where you're coming from??, or is this just trolling? I dont have to defend bad journalism or "admit" to anything. With the benefit of your greater knowledge are you telling me that 'just the 20' were let starve or did that element of the story die too? If one was let starve to death I think I'd be justified in my view (although admittedly it would make it a less systemic issue and there would be fewer culpable). As you've said I'm very fair, I only want to convict the guilty ones...


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## Purple (17 Jun 2014)

This isn’t about the Catholic Church or even particularly about Catholic Ireland. It’s about what Ireland was, ethically, morally, culturally and theologically.
Duke summed it up well; “Ireland back then was an impoverished, ignorant, intolerant, hypocritical priest ridden society.” 
The RC Church was a major part of the problem, front and centre, but where did the Church stop influencing broader culture and broader culture start influencing the Church? This was a country where female sexuality was feared and considered sinful by a male dominated political and church elite. They couldn’t accept that women wanted sex, that they got horny (for want of a better phrase). The solution was to hide the truth and punish those women, and their children, for perfectly natural urges and practices. Mother and baby homes were a repository for that national guilt. I know that there were incidents of pregnancies through incest and clerical rape, as well as underage sex etc. These homes also acted as a place to hide the victim and so hide the crime so the perpetrators escaped justice and the victims were punished. It’s like what we read about happening in Iran or Saudi Arabia now. 
The Nuns ran the homes and priests and bishops imposed a moral authority that validated their practices and hid them from scrutiny but our political leaders were just as much part of that than any priest or nun. The fathers and mothers of these young women and girls were usually the ones that sent their child away to hide the shame they had brought to the family.
Almost everything about our society was repressive. Women were especially repressed and this was an expression of that repression. 

Ireland in 2014, for all its many faults, is a much better place than Ireland pre 1990.
The RC Church in 2014 is a much better church than it was back then but crucially that change was brought by the influence of broader society. Without that external pressure a monolithic organisation like that would never have changed.


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## Teatime (30 Jun 2014)

cremeegg said:


> What makes you think this. I think it is exactly the same power seeking organisation it always was. My local school is about to appoint a new head teacher. Who do you think will choose the candidate. The parents?, the teachers?, the board of management?. No chance, none of these will be involved.
> 
> The Church will appoint the new head teacher with no requirement to discuss with anybody.
> 
> I agree. I just want to end the involvement of the institution in the education of young people. They have proven they are not fit.



I absolutely agree with this. I don't care what the roman organisation does after it has released it's grip on the education system.


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## Purple (22 Jul 2014)

Interesting stuff from Forbes


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