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Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

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    #782
    Corkfeen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    How may children in Ireland died from Malnutrition, you would think the Catholic Church invented it.. That was what Irish society was like.

    People fail to remember that in the 40's food was rationed in Ireland!!!! There were poor children everywhere.

    So illegitimate children are more prone to malnutrition than legitimate?


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    #783
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Corkfeen wrote: »
    So illegitimate children are more prone to malnutrition than legitimate?

    They certainly were in those days as they were basically 'non-persons' by the looks of things.


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    #784
    Corkfeen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    They certainly were in those days as they were basically 'non-persons' by the looks of things.

    Indeed but it seems some are going for the stance that there's nothing to see here. Including the Gardaí in Tuam unfortunately.


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    #785
    Hailey Abundant Harmonica
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Hailey Abundant Harmonica


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    How may children in Ireland died from Malnutrition, you would think the Catholic Church invented it.. That was what Irish society was like.

    People fail to remember that in the 40's food was rationed in Ireland!!!! There were poor children everywhere.

    But during the 40s the mortality rate in these homes was as much as 4 times higher than those outside the homes.

    Judging the mortality rates vs the national average would be a pretty fair control for the food rationing / healthcare / lack of healthcare of the time.

    These homes were paid well to look after their inhabitants, so arguably should have had a lower mortality rate.


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    #786
    mezuzaj
    Closed Accounts Posts: 176 ✭✭mezuzaj


    Corkfeen wrote: »
    So illegitimate children are more prone to malnutrition than legitimate?

    People... >!!!!! How do you think families fed their children in the 1930's if they had no money?? Who gave them food?

    What was the dole rate in 1930s?

    Child death was a lot more common then.


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    #787
    mezuzaj
    Closed Accounts Posts: 176 ✭✭mezuzaj


    Deleted User wrote: »
    But during the 40s the mortality rate in these homes was as much as 4 times higher than those outside the homes.

    Judging the mortality rates vs the national average would be a pretty fair control for the food rationing / healthcare / lack of healthcare of the time.

    These homes were paid well to look after their inhabitants, so arguably should have had a lower mortality rate.

    Of course it was higher.... It was the poorest who suffered most. Most unmarried mothers came from poor families.

    Then when Children were born they were more likely to get infections from other children in the homes.

    But that was how things were, in ANY institution, poor house, work house, catholic or protestant.


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    #788
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    How may children in Ireland died from Malnutrition, you would think the Catholic Church invented it.. That was what Irish society was like.

    People fail to remember that in the 40's food was rationed in Ireland!!!! There were poor children everywhere.

    Was it 60% in the case of legitimate children? Because that was the in the care of the good sisters illegitimate infant mortality rate.

    And it may surprise you to learn that in Ireland, as in the UK, rationing resulted in an overall healthier population as 'luxury' goods like chocolate, coffee, sugar etc were rationed but vegetables were not. And correct me if I am wrong, but orders such as the Bon Secour sisters owned extensive farm land. I'm not wrong. They still do.

    Plus - rationing did not last that long in Ireland and it certainly did not in place in the 1950s so what is your excuse for the deaths that too place then?


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    #789
    Hailey Abundant Harmonica
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Hailey Abundant Harmonica


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    People... >!!!!! How do you think families fed their children in the 1930's if they had no money?? Who gave them food?

    What was the dole rate in 1930s?

    Child death was a lot more common then.

    Correct, and comparing the rates to today's mortality rates is therefore pointless.

    So use the mortality rates of the time to see how poorly these homes were 'doing' at keeping their kids alive.

    http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/mortality-rates.jpg

    From here - http://us.macmillan.com/motherandchild/LindseyEarnerByrne
    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Of course it was higher.... It was the poorest who suffered most. Most unmarried mothers came from poor families.

    Then when Children were born they were more likely to get infections from other children in the homes.

    But that was how things were, in ANY institution, poor house, work house, catholic or protestant.

    I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding about what these Homes were for and how they were ran. The State paid the Home above the national average wage (per mother) in order to house, home and care for the unmarried women and their children.

    On top of this money, the home earned money through laundry services (quasi slave labour) and (apparently) adoption fees.

    This money was to be used for the health and care of the inhabitants. Given that it was above the national average wage, that would mean that per mother/child within the home, they should have been relatively better off than the average person at the time in Ireland.


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    #790
    Czarcasm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    Azwaldo55 wrote: »
    What could ordinary people do exactly?

    ...

    What chance had an ordinary people against this power? Not a hope!


    About the same chance as the people they condemned to a life of slavery and intolerable cruelty then?

    And as the grip of the RCC waned in the mid-90s, people still remained silent, not because they were afraid of the RCC, but because they knew what they had done was wrong.


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    #791
    mezuzaj
    Closed Accounts Posts: 176 ✭✭mezuzaj


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Correct, and comparing the rates to today's mortality rates is therefore pointless.

    So use the mortality rates of the time to see how poorly these homes were 'doing' at keeping their kids alive.

    http://cf.broadsheet.ie/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/mortality-rates.jpg

    From here - http://us.macmillan.com/motherandchild/LindseyEarnerByrne

    Is that purely in Catholic Institutions? What about the protestant ones? How does it compare to state run institutions on other countries in the same period?


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    #792
    Corkfeen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    Was it 60% in the case of legitimate children? Because that was the in the care of the good sisters illegitimate infant mortality rate.

    And it may surprise you to learn that in Ireland, as in the UK, rationing resulted in an overall healthier population as 'luxury' goods like chocolate, coffee, sugar etc were rationed but vegetables were not. And correct me if I am wrong, but orders such as the Bon Secour sisters owned extensive farm land. I'm not wrong. They still do.

    Plus - rationing did not last that long in Ireland and it certainly did not in place in the 1950s so what is your excuse for the deaths that too place then?

    Plus I'm assuming they also received financial support off the government. Note the lack of starving nuns.


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    #793
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Of course it was higher.... It was the poorest who suffered most. Most unmarried mothers came from poor families.

    Then when Children were born they were more likely to get infections from other children in the homes.

    But that was how things were, in ANY institution, poor house, work house, catholic or protestant.

    Since you are writing with such authority may I request that you provide evidence that 'most unmarried mothers came from poor families'?

    Work houses/poor houses - state run institutions before independence- were either closed by the Free State or handed over to religious orders to run as old people's homes/orphanages and they were paid by the State to do so.


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    #794
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    People... >!!!!! How do you think families fed their children in the 1930's if they had no money?? Who gave them food?

    What was the dole rate in 1930s?

    Child death was a lot more common then.

    Bear in mind too that the social welfare supports (what little there were) in those days were largely still a throw back to some version of the Poor Law of the 19th century.

    There was a huge dependence on using 'charitable organisations' (religious institutions) to provide social welfare and it wouldn't really have been seen as 'welfare' either it would have been seen as something more akin to 'poor relief'

    The public health service was also just largely money being given by the state to voluntary (religious) hospitals without any particular structure in place really.

    The church bodies also had huge involvement in social services and assessment of need. So, you can be sure that non-conformists were probably last on the list and it was of course used as a way of implementing religiously inspired social order and social engineering on society at large.

    Ireland was very late by European standards to establish a modern social welfare system partially at least because the Church opposed it as communism at one stage! They absolutely fought tooth and nail against anything that took healthcare out of their control in the past too which is largely how we've ended up with the two tier health system and all the voluntary hospitals and lack of control or a system.

    At one stage the Legion of Mary even ran the Probation Service for the state as an outsourcer !!

    Modern Ireland and Ireland of the 20s-50s have very little in common. Even Ireland form the 50s-80s is almost unrecognisable from today's context other than a few hangover issues.
    (That still doesn't excuse chucking bodies into a septic tank .. which was never acceptable in any version of 20th century Ireland, btw - I am not saying this to excuse the institutions, just in case anyone gets the wrong idea!!)


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    #795
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Is that purely in Catholic Institutions? What about the protestant ones? How does it compare to state run institutions on other countries in the same period?

    Funny you should ask...

    In the course of doing family research I happened upon three great-grand aunts who due to the death of their parents from TB found themselves in a notorious orphanage in Jersey. All three died of TB aged ten, seven and three.

    These girls had no known living relatives (their brothers were in the army and all stationed in India) and came from an extremely poor family. They are buried with their parents in Almorah cemetery not a septic tank. I had zero problems getting details of their deaths and burials.
    I have seen their grave.


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    #796
    mikom
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,391 ✭✭✭✭mikom


    ♫
    Banana Republic
    Septic Isle
    Screaming in the Suffering sea
    It sounds like crying (crying, crying)
    Everywhere I go, oh yeah
    Everywhere I see
    The black and blue uniforms
    Police and priests


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    #797
    bbsrs
    Registered Users Posts: 943 ✭✭✭bbsrs


    I Heart Internet wrote: »
    What did your great-grand parents do to relieve the suffering of mothers and children in these homes?

    Kept quiet for fear of burning in hell for all eternity I presume. When you tell kids from birth basically that they'll burn in hell if they don't do what their religion prescribes that's what happens. The institution of the church rules it's subjects by putting the fear of god into them . When our first Taoiseach who believed to have seen an apparition of Jesus ,enlisted the help of the archbishop of Dublin when preparing our constitution and gave the running of schools and hospitals to the Irish Catholic Church how could it have ended up any different.


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    #798
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    It's like Goldenbridge all over again.

    Remember the denials and the excuses when Mary Raftery finally blew the lid on that one?
    Then it was the Industrial Schools - more denials and excuses.

    Given what we know happened in the laundries and the industrial schools how anyone can believe for one second that the religious orders tasked with caring for children who were seen as the products of 'sin' acted in the best interests of those children is beyond me.

    The healthy ones they sold off to wealthy Americans, the others learned that this life really was a vale of tears at the hands of those clergy who were meant to care for them.

    The so-called moral guardians of Irish society.

    I, for one, have had enough of denials and excuses.

    It is wrong to mistreat children now and it was wrong then.
    It is wrong to take monies to provide care now and fail to do so and it was wrong then.
    It is wrong to dump the bodies of children in a septic tank now and it was wrong then.

    It only stopped around 1961 - lucky for my aunt who got pregnant out of wedlock in 1963 that she took the boat to England where she gave birth to, and raised, a healthy boy who is now a 50 year old man with grandchildren.


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    #799
    Bannasidhe
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    bbsrs wrote: »
    Kept quiet for fear of burning in hell for all eternity I presume. When you tell kids from birth basically that they'll burn in hell if they don't do what their religion prescribes that's what happens. The institution of the church rules it's subjects by putting the fear of god into them . When our first Taoiseach who believed to have seen an apparition of Jesus ,enlisted the help of the archbishop of Dublin when preparing our constitution and gave the running of schools and hospitals to the Irish Catholic Church how could it have ended up any different.

    and don't forget the power of shame.

    Shame intensified if the priest condemned you from the pulpit - as was their want. Toe the line or be cast out.

    If anyone want to see an example of the sheer hypocrisy of the Irish clergy have a look at Bishop Eamonn Casey and Fr Michael Cleary.
    See them dance and sing in front of thousands and the Pope while their illegitimate children were kept under wraps and out of the clutches of the good sisters of no-mercy and the no safe harbour bon secours.


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    #800
    shruikan2553
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    My mother mentioned last night that her first child died before she gave birth. The nuns gave the baby to my Father who buried in family plot, but unmarked. She had spina bifida and was still born.

    That was the reality of the day for many children born like this, they were not given funerals. Not just in Catholic Church but also in protestant, it was the way things were done 60 years ago.

    There are hundreds of unmarked mass graves around Ireland, from the 1840's to 1950's. This is the historical realities in a era of poverty and pre-antibiotics/medical care that we have today.

    It seems some what to shine the spotlight on what some Catholic institutions did.. but they forget that Protestant institutions did the exact same.. If a Child died a birth they were also buried in an unmarked grave. That was the thinking of the day.

    There are many thousands of unmarked graves around Ireland of Children who died at Child birth in an era when child mortality was 5-6% that has nothing to do with any Catholic or Protestant institution.
    mezuzaj wrote: »
    People... >!!!!! How do you think families fed their children in the 1930's if they had no money?? Who gave them food?

    What was the dole rate in 1930s?

    Child death was a lot more common then.


    Theres a huge difference. These women gave birth and the children were alive. The unmarked burial isnt the issue, that could be forgiven as being a different time but leaving them out to die before throwing them into a septic tank is a little bit different.
    It doesnt matter what the protestants did, it was the catholics who mostly did it here. Any protestant religious orders should be treated in the same way. Does the protestants doing it make it ok? And yet the child mortalitry rate was a lot higher in these places which received money and made money by the selling of children.

    Im actually not surprised how this could have happened. With some of the replies here it makes me wonder just how uncaring people must have been back there if this is how some are now.


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    #801
    Hailey Abundant Harmonica
    Posts: 0 ✭✭✭✭ Hailey Abundant Harmonica


    shruikan2553 wrote: »
    Theres a huge difference. These women gave birth and the children were alive. The unmarked burial isnt the issue, that could be forgiven as being a different time but leaving them out to die before throwing them into a septic tank is a little bit different.
    It doesnt matter what the protestants did, it was the catholics who mostly did it here. Any protestant religious orders organisation should be treated in the same way. Does the protestants doing it make it ok? And yet the child mortalitry rate was a lot higher in these places which received money and made money by the selling of children.

    Im actually not surprised how this could have happened. With some of the replies here it makes me wonder just how uncaring people must have been back there if this is how some are now.

    fyp, if this was an atheist "Mother & Child Co-Operative" this would still be orders of magnitude from being correct.

    Any organisation whatsoever should be treated exactly the same when it comes to any judgements being made over their actions.


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    #802
    Lingua Franca
    Registered Users Posts: 2,800 ✭✭✭Lingua Franca


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    And which grave were they to be put in?? on which land?

    Here, perhaps? Looks like a famine/paupers grave to me.

    hvoOxZb.jpg


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Is that purely in Catholic Institutions? What about the protestant ones? How does it compare to state run institutions on other countries in the same period?

    Bethany Home was just as bad for infant mortality. Why do you ask?

    bethanystarvedidm15.gif


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    #803
    shruikan2553
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    Deleted User wrote: »
    fyp, if this was an atheist "Mother & Child Co-Operative" this would still be orders of magnitude from being correct.

    Any organisation whatsoever should be treated exactly the same when it comes to any judgements being made over their actions.

    True. Could you imagine if it was atheists? We would be told we need the catholic church for its morality in order to prevent this from happening again. But instead we are getting "different time", if people involved can still be alive its not that much different.

    The best way to deal with it is probably start from the bottom, how did hey get there followed by how and who was involved. Anyone found to actively help in these should be punished if still alive be they garda who ignored someone that escaped, state official that knew and allowed it or the nun that left a baby to die.


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    #804
    Czarcasm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    shruikan2553 wrote: »
    Im actually not surprised how this could have happened. With some of the replies here it makes me wonder just how uncaring people must have been back there if this is how some are now.


    This is exactly the point I've been trying to make all along shruikan, that people back then were as uncaring as they are now. I posted this in a thread that's now locked so I can't quote directly, but it's an example of the attitudes in society at the time, and this was in the 80s -

    I was brought up in a home where both my parents were "devout" Roman Catholics, "pillars of the community", etc, real fire and brimstone nutters. I was subjected to horrendous beatings for numerous reasons, eventually they didn't even need a reason (to the point where I questioned was I merely only put on this earth to be a punch bag for these cnuts?). The reason I mention this is because despite my neighbors being fully aware of the situation, nobody ever reported anything to the authorities. Nobody so much as picked up a phone when they saw a naked child running up the road and back down to get the smell of urine off his body after he wet the bed, again. Bear in mind that this was a busy road with cars passing in both directions.

    If anyone was complicit in covering up abuse, it was the people that knew about it, and knew it was wrong, yet CHOSE to keep shtum, and I don't buy for a minute this nonsense about "Oh people were controlled by the Catholic Church, they were afraid", all the rest of it. How do they think a child who was being subjected to such physical and mental torture must have felt? One simple answer - they didn't, because they didn't care, because they didn't want to get involved, because they saw it as none of their business, because my parents were held in as high regard as the local priest. They had status, and status means they were untouchable.


    From this page -

    Catholic-bashing.


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    #805
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Karl Stein wrote: »
    I agree with what you say but how do we reconcile the above idea that Ireland should face up to its demons like the Germans did (or were forced to) when we seem quick to absolve the wider public for its lack of civil courage?

    We need imo to accept collective responsibility for these atrocities. Although those in positions of authority should be subject to the harshest criticism, the reality is that the culture of the time believed the best solution for society was to banish "fallen" women to internment camps. They (who are our ancestors) had no legal or moral right to believe so let alone do so, no more than those who believed it was best for society to round up Jews and intern them, or for that matter for the US to round up Japanese and intern them during WWII.

    IMO there is far too much deflecting of the blame onto the "bad apples" going on, some of it on this thread from those who lay all the blame at the feet of the RCC, and the even more head wrecking idea on the other forum that criticism of the RCC is unjust. The harsh reality is that the Bon Secours and other religious orders were doing the dirty work that society at the time demanded. Part of accepting collective responsibility is to ask the question what would we have done ourselves at the time, and accepting the reality that like those at all levels of society at the time we would have done nothing.


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    #806
    Fries-With-That
    Registered Users Posts: 776 ✭✭✭Fries-With-That


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Of course it was higher.... It was the poorest who suffered most. Most unmarried mothers came from poor families.

    Then when Children were born they were more likely to get infections from other children in the homes.

    But that was how things were, in ANY institution, poor house, work house, catholic or protestant.

    Most unmarried mothers came from poor families ??? Have you some factual information to back that up.

    How were the children more likely to get infections in these "homes" these homes were scrubbed from top to bottom by the girls that stayed in these institutions to breast feed until their babies were weaned.

    I'm coming to the sickening conclusion that the mothers that handed over their babies for adoption got out early and these are the babies that ended up starved.

    These institutions charged a pretty penny for babies, were also paid by the state, were primarily self sufficient through donations, and still managed to allow children to die.

    It should also be said that many of these girls were in these homes because of rape or abuse.


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    #807
    mezuzaj
    Closed Accounts Posts: 176 ✭✭mezuzaj


    nagirrac wrote: »
    We need imo to accept collective responsibility for these atrocities. Although those in positions of authority should be subject to the harshest criticism, the reality is that the culture of the time believed the best solution for society was to banish "fallen" women to internment camps. They (who are our ancestors) had no legal or moral right to believe so let alone do so, no more than those who believed it was best for society to round up Jews and intern them, or for that matter for the US to round up Japanese and intern them during WWII.

    IMO there is far too much deflecting of the blame onto the "bad apples" going on, some of it on this thread from those who lay all the blame at the feet of the RCC, and the even more head wrecking idea on the other forum that criticism of the RCC is unjust. The harsh reality is that the Bon Secours and other religious orders were doing the dirty work that society at the time demanded. Part of accepting collective responsibility is to ask the question what would we have done ourselves at the time, and accepting the reality that like those at all levels of society at the time we would have done nothing.


    Exactly!!! society was not very welcoming for women who became pregnant.. There was no lone parents allowance, or social house, or dole payment.

    A lot of finger pointing at the Catholic Church, yet nobody campaigned on behalf of these women in the 30's. Society did not want unmarried women, be it Irish society or British or Germany society.

    Look are Hart Island in New York and their mass unmarked graves of children.

    in 1930's or 40's Ireland there was not a lot of money.

    I am not here to justify what was done, it was wrong by our standards, but people need to sit themselves in the shoes of the day and see society as it was on a whole.


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    #808
    Fries-With-That
    Registered Users Posts: 776 ✭✭✭Fries-With-That


    Zubeneschamali wrote: »
    The home was apparently in the former Workhouse, which can be seen here on the OS 25" map from 1892.

    There is already a memorial on the site to six Republicans shot by the Free State on the site in 1923.

    An aerial view of the area from Bing maps, the IRA monumant being to the top left of the playground area. From the 25", it looks as if the tank was at the SE corner of the workhouse, now the small green space to the South of the playground.

    As a further little bit of information about this monument to the Tuam martyrs, it was the mother superior of the convent at the time the workhouse was being demolished decided that this wall be left standing as a fitting tribute to the men.

    No such monument for the babies buried/dumped in the concrete tank below the wall.


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    #809
    Corkfeen
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    mezuzaj wrote: »
    Exactly!!! society was not very welcoming for women who became pregnant.. There was no lone parents allowance, or social house, or dole payment.

    A lot of finger pointing at the Catholic Church, yet nobody campaigned on behalf of these women in the 30's. Society did not want unmarried women, be it Irish society or British or Germany society.

    Look are Hart Island in New York and their mass unmarked graves of children.

    in 1930's or 40's Ireland there was not a lot of money.

    I am not here to justify what was done, it was wrong by our standards, but people need to sit themselves in the shoes of the day and see society as it was on a whole.

    Except you claimed they didn't have the ability to feed the children. Which they clearly did.


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    #810
    shruikan2553
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,113 ✭✭✭shruikan2553


    Czarcasm wrote: »
    This is exactly the point I've been trying to make all along shruikan, that people back then were as uncaring as they are now. I posted this in a thread that's now locked so I can't quote directly, but it's an example of the attitudes in society at the time, and this was in the 80s -





    From this page -

    Catholic-bashing.

    I would say most people allowed these because of how they were taught. This: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=90688783&postcount=386 explains how such a view could exists but there were those who did nothing out of fear for themselves and those who knew it was wrong but because it wasnt their problem they did nothing. Then Im sure there were those that would believe anything the church told them and would follow it without question, looking for any reason to make themselves feel superior. It still makes what happened wrong and those involved should be punished but it helps to explain how it happened in the country. I have only seen people talking about the children in school but havent found anything to tell me how much was known. They knew it was a ****ty place but did they know the details of slavery and human trafficking? The nuns seemed to make the place presentable for visitors.


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    #811
    mezuzaj
    Closed Accounts Posts: 176 ✭✭mezuzaj


    Corkfeen wrote: »
    Except you claimed they didn't have the ability to feed the children. Which they clearly did.

    Do you think people who asked for Charity were treated better that society who didn't ask for charity? If there was malnutrition in society at large as there was do you think people would get a better life in an institution.

    The institutions that started in the early 1900's are a take over from the workhouses, places of last resort.

    None of this was right. Of course it was hypocrisy of some who lorded over others, but it was seen as setting an example to society... don't get pregnant or else. That was the way society was, Catholic or Protestant. Back in the first half of the last century it was all about work, you worked all the time, work was the way you survived.


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