Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

Czarcasm wrote: »

Unquestioningly, or more conveniently? As long as they don't have to deal with the problem, they're not too concerned with how someone else takes care of the problem for them.

In this case, people didn't care about what happened to these young women and children as long as they didn't bring shame upon their families.

I have actually spoken to a great many elderly people about the laundries etc and the main reaction is shame. But not in the way you mean. Shame at their failure to act and shame that the fear of shame caused such pain.

Yes, they 'knew' but they didn't know the extent of the abuse and sexual abuse rarely, if ever, occurred to them.

They knew the brothers and sisters of the religious orders were handy with the cane/belt/strap/2x4 and fond of slapping kids around as most people we taught by them but this was accepted as normal. No one bar those who experienced it even considered sexual abuse was possible.
These were God's representatives after all, and while they might give you a few pucks sure it was for your own good.

Shame, guilt and a desperate heart breaking sense of helplessness are usually what I encounter when taking testimonies from those who were not directly affected - by which I mean they 'knew a girl' or 'heard about' or in the case of my uncle - used to deliver the milk to the Good Shepard's in Cork when he was just a child himself.

He is in his mid 80s now an eaten with guilt that he didn't do something. Anything. But young as he was, he was the only bread winner with 6 younger than him and the nuns were his biggest customers.

He could have told someone - but who would listen?
Who would earn money if he lost his milk round?
Yet still the guilt keeps him awake at night.

Czarcasm wrote: »

Your uncle was just a child Bannsidhe, I'm talking about the adults that knew, and they did know, adults that knew exactly what was going on in the laundries, adults that condemned their own children to the laundries, neighbors that let their neighbors condemn children to the laundries.

Children told their stories, but adults didn't want to listen, they didn't want to face reality because they knew what they were doing was wrong.

They should be ashamed, but instead they pretend like they never knew what went on, and pretend they never knew about the dumping grounds, people still alive today know more than they're letting on, but too many people want to bury the past and wash their hands of it.

A child whose family circumstances made him grow up too damn fast and made him extremely street wise. He was the breadwinner for his family.

My point is that most people really didn't know the extent of the abuse.

They knew the women worked in the laundries but didn't know the State also paid an allowance for them. They thought the work was vital to earn their keep and felt that was fair enough, if hard, but so were a lot of jobs.

Yes, some families did dump their uppitty/shameful women in places like the Good Shepard's. I remember being jokingly threatened with it by my Dad when I was being particularly stroppy and my mother went ballistic at him.

I asked my grandmother about the place and could he do that and she said yes, but it would be over her dead body. I still remember that feeling of horror that this was even possible in the 1970s. But she, a well travelled, well educated woman who worked for RTE, had no idea about the level of abuse. When she found out she was horrified (it all started to break shortly before her death) as her niece was briefly in such a place due to the death of her father. The parish priest advised my great-aunt to put her daughter in there while she got back on her feet. My grand mother had 5 children, a mortgage and a terminally ill husband so reluctantly agreed with the PP that this would be for the best.

5 years old and she was sexually abused. Never told a soul until after States of Fear was broadcast. Never forgave her mother - who paid the nuns for her upkeep - neither her mother or her aunt (my grandmother) ever knew as both had died before the broadcast. A mother and daughter permanently estranged - a family destroyed.

It was a society filled with unspoken fear for women. Men could and did put their wives and/or daughters in such places and the law allowed them to do so. Some men took advantage of this. Some men used to go to such places to choose a wife. The woman had no choice. It was marry or stay where she was doing laundry. And sure wasn't this man making a respectable woman out of her which is more than she deserved the hussy and she could forget about her bastard children. There was no divorce as no man could pull asunder what God had joined.

The news reels showed all the 'lucky' babies adopted by rich Americans and wasn't that better than being in an orphanage or below the poverty line being raised by a woman alone?

What the news reels did not tell was that these children were sold, often to couples who had been rejected as adopters by the U.S. authorities but as long as they promised to raise the child as a Catholic there was no problem on the Irish side. Indeed, the State facilitated such adoption in exchange for lucrative sugar export contracts.

Woman was subject to man and the RCC said this was the will of God (a view I have seen espoused in the Xianity forum on several occasions).
Women and children were property and Man was their lord with the weight of the RCC behind him.

To be honest, even though I was born at the arse end of those times and am lucky enough to have lived through the transition to a more liberal society I find it hard to get my head around the level of clerical interference in everyday lives that was not only tolerated - it was considered normal. Because it was normal for Ireland.


For example, McQuiad trying to ban women from mixed athletic events in case it would encourage them to use tampons ( article in History Ireland I can dig out if you want.) Think about that - An Archbishop getting worked up about the threat of International tamponage and no body pointed and laughed because he spoke for God so it was his business as everything is God's business.
To us now it is farcical, but back then, deference was bate into you by your clerical 'educators'.

Not for one second do I absolve the State of culpability. Many secular 'leaders' not only turned a blind eye, they worked hand in glove but the State did not claim to be the one true representative of God Almighty and to be doing his will.

The State bowed down to the dictators in cassocks and not only never challenged them (with rare exceptions such as Noel Browne), it rode on the RCC's slipstream to gain authority for itself.

What we need now is for the State to stop being so effin differential and demand the RCC answers for it's role - if it fails to do so, it's still in thrall.

Then when the information is in the public domain we can then turn to the State itself and say - 'what about the part you played?'

But without the info from the RCC we simply do not have the evidence and only the State can apply the required pressure. If the political will is there. If it isn't - then we the people have to force it.

We owe it to the women, the children, the families destroyed by Holy Catholic Ireland.

Yes, They were afraid to speak out - are we?

Unless we do - we have no right to sit in judgement of anyone.

SpaceTime wrote: »

My question though is under what legislation were these women kept there?

Were the nuns just falsely imprisoning people are was this backed up by some kind of nutty law?

Academic abstract but it covers the basics http://doras.dcu.ie/2110/1/Durability_and_Change_in_State_Gender_Systems.pdf.

Essentially - 1920s saw what is called the First Wave of Irish Feminism as personified by the likes of Dr Kathleen Lynn, Rosie Hackett, Con Markievicz, Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington. It was a version of feminism that saw clear gender difference and advocated a different but equal policy that valued the unique contributions both genders could make. Keep in mind that this was during a period of great social upheaval in Ireland and also a time period when women had, successfully, managed to keep the country running while men were otherwise engaged in killing each other for various causes. Women played a pivotal role in both the Rising and the War of Independence and many were staunchly republican (old school lefty stylee). They also already had the vote when the Free State came into existence.

However, a number of factors drove Ireland (and the western world) deeper into societal conservatism but as as regards your question the key is the 1937 Constitution.

The definition of women’s citizenship in the Constitution was deliberately narrow, it limited the equality given to women, to political equality – the right to vote and stand for election – the phrase ‘without distinction of sex’ having been deleted from the draft of Article 40.1 (Scannell, 1988: 124). The clause stating that all citizens were equal before the law was qualified with the words; ‘this shall not be held to mean that the State shall not in its enactments have due regard to difference in capacity, physical and moral, and of social function’. The Constitution, therefore, gave women no entitlement to equality
and sanctioned the state’s policy regime, which limited women’s access to employment and treated married women as the legal inferiors of their husbands.

Women as legally inferior to, and dependent upon, men was written into the Constitution and this formed the basis for all subsequent legislation.
A woman went from being under the control of her father to being under the control of her husband - that is where the 'giving the bride away' wedding thing comes from.

It really was a patriarchy and women who failed to accept their lesser status must be sanctioned. When this is State policy - the State gives these sanctions legal status.

The Irish state, like first-wave feminism, based its public policy on a strong belief in gender difference, but in its case it was a difference based on male superiority not a difference of equals. The state strongly discouraged married women from working and allotted an employment role for single women as it was envisaged that some women would never marry and would continue to pursue their careers. But in line with society’s assessment of the comparative status of men and women, career paths even for single women were narrow and poorly paid. For many women, including married and widowed women, and especially those with children, working was an absolute necessity unrecognized in public policy. In spite of this reality, the state refused to recognize in its
public policy that alternative models of family life existed, in case doing so would weaken commitment to the family based exclusively on a husband/father ‘breadwinner’ with a stay-at-home wife/mother.

Men worked. Woman stayed at home and raised the childer. This was the natural order of things and official State policy. For example - in situations where you a single man and a widow with children doing the same job (clerical work for example) the man was paid more and paid less tax as the official view was that men were breadwinners while women were just getting pin money.

It wasn't until 1956 that married women got some very limited property rights - and it caused uproar in some quarters.

Up until them legally Man and wife were one entity and the Man was the 'head' and therefore spoke on behalf of both.

As one politician argued
. . . certain legal rights exist already for the protection of the married women’s status. Here however we are opening the door entirely so that the husband and wife will now stand as two entirely different people in the eyes of the law . . . for the first time, we are providing the married woman with the temptation to bring her husband into court in a civil action when she might not think of it otherwise

Domestic violence, while not condoned, was accepted as part of marriage.

The acceptance of violence against women in marriage as part of the gender contract was matched by an acceptance of women’s extreme economic dependency that reinforced their vulnerability in an abusive marriage. In the course of the debate, the gendered property relations that were at the heart of the marriage contract was vividly described.

One important part of the marriage ceremony is that the husband gives his wife the right to his property or goods. Of course, to a large extent, in practice, that is nonsense nowadays because it does not mean that the wife gets all the husband’s investments or anything like that, but it does mean that she gets very great rights in many ways to his property, to live in his house and use his things.

Short answer - Dev wrote a Constitution which limited women's rights under the guise of protecting the family and placed men in a legally dominant role and subsequent legislation embedded this.

It was all perfectly legal :mad:

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone who was around then and failed to act should feel shame. The "not knowing" thing holds no water with me. Even if it's the scale not occurring to them, that's because it would've been inconvenient for them.
Everyone knew right well what was going on, there's a reason paedo priest jokes were known on the playground 50+ years ago. A handful of people stood up and were let down by their simpering families who let them be carted away to mental facilities to waste oxygen for the rest of their so-called lives, or they were sent away to save embarrassment.


As for investigating now, what appetite would there be for digging up yet more collusion by Gardai in the past given the press they've been getting recently?

In my experience they do feel shame and a huge amount of guilt.

I am confused - on the one had you are saying the older generation should feel shame but there is no appetite now to pursue it further. Does this mean we should let it go? Or are you referring to a lack of will on the part of the government/authorities?

If we let them leave it go - we are, imho, guiltier than any of the previous generation who did nothing.

Do we turn to the survivors - in particular the women who do not know what happened their children - and say 'meh, the gubbermint ain't interested so like...soz'?

Feck that.

The gubbermint had no intention of legislating in accordance with the X Referendum either until they were forced to by overwhelming public opinion on foot of a tragic and unnecessary death.

Do we let who knows how many unnecessary deaths of children slide because the AGS has gotten itself in a bit of bother due to failing to carry out their duties correctly therefore they should be allowed to not carry out their duty again?

Maybe I am misunderstanding you. Apologies if I am (please say I am...)

Deleted User wrote: »

Amond the government and Gardai I meant. There's no need here to go into the different reasons why, we all know them.

We do.

Just like we know the reasons the previous generation did nothing.

The question is - do we let the government do what it wants like they did or do we force them to do what we want?

If it's the former - how are we any different from the previous generations if we just accept that that is the way things are?