"Significant" numbers of babies remains actually found

Annasopra

Very shocked by the news coming from Tuam

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/tuam-babies-significant-quantities-of-human-remains-discovered-at-excavation-site-35498856.html

According to Kitty Holland we are talking about hundreds of remains of babies and toddlers

whisky_galore

Tbh, I'm not really surprised at these things anymore.

There's probably sites all over the country that'll never be discovered.

mynamejeff

some of these sites date back to the 1800s right ?

wasnt the rate of infant mortality very high historically then ?

RobertKK

The homes ran from 1925 to 1961."

I am not shocked that there are a lot of remains there, what I would like to know is what diseases they died of, given so many diseases were rampant then, that are not present now, or present to very insignificant levels and treatable. A lot of families have members of their extended family who died as children in that period.
What is shocking is how the remains of the dead were possibly treated.

Wanderer78

Not surprised at all, we have a very nasty history regarding these issues

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This post has been deleted.

seamus

Given the nature of the homes, I wouldn't be too surprised about remains of foetuses and babies up to about a year. Poor education, poor support, poor medical care and poor nutrition provided by the homes means that the number of children who died within the first year would be very high.

It's the children over a year that need extra focus - were they subject to extreme levels of physical abuse, or was disease and malnourishment rampant? A child over a year is pretty easy to keep from dying - feed them and don't let them fall from a big height.

I disagree with Robert that the treatment of the remains is the "most shocking" thing. It's the level of cover-up that allowed so many children to die without anyone raising a flag that something might be wrong.

If the bodies had all been buried in individually-marked graves that wouldn't make it "OK" that an insanely high infant mortality rate went unreported and uninvestigated for so long.

SEPT 23 1989

It should be treated as a crime scene

Red Kev

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

It should be treated as a crime scene

Have we an extradition treaty with the Vatican?

It was thought that up to 800 were buried in Tuam in various sites. My granddad is from 8 miles from Tuam and that's what they always said. Sounded mad until the story came out a few years back. Hard to know as so many records of what happened were deliberately destroyed over the past few years.

That Cardinal O'Connell who died a couple of weeks ago did his level best to prevent people seeing documents, makes sense that they destroyed a good few as well.

Sad thing is we'll never know the names of the kids in those graves for a fitting memorial and nobody will ever sit for it.

RobertKK

seamus wrote: »

Given the nature of the homes, I wouldn't be too surprised about remains of foetuses and babies up to about a year. Poor education, poor support, poor medical care and poor nutrition provided by the homes means that the number of children who died within the first year would be very high.

It's the children over a year that need extra focus - were they subject to extreme levels of physical abuse, or was disease and malnourishment rampant? A child over a year is pretty easy to keep from dying - feed them and don't let them fall from a big height.

I disagree with Robert that the treatment of the remains is the "most shocking" thing. It's the level of cover-up that allowed so many children to die without anyone raising a flag that something might be wrong.

If the bodies had all been buried in individually-marked graves that wouldn't make it "OK" that an insanely high infant mortality rate went unreported and uninvestigated for so long.

In that period on my father's said he had a brother who was around 2 years old when he died.
My mother had a brother who was 16 years old who died from pneumonia in that same time period.
I am not making excuses for anyone, just simply, young people died from things that one would not expect in this modern era.

In Ireland, there were sharp declines in infant mortality rates beginning in the mid 1940s, with most of the gains occurring in urban areas over the next twenty years. This lead to a convergence of urban and rural infant mortality rates, essentially eliminating the urban mortality penalty. We argue that the reasons for the sharp fall in infant mortality during this
period were due largely to legislative changes that improved sanitation and water, including food safety, and rubbish disposal.
1
With appropriate time lags, these changes improved the
contemporaneous health of infants, and lead to a significant improvement in the health of affected cohorts at older ages.

http://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp200943.pdf

In 1926 the life expectancy at birth was 57.4 years.

There is a graph in that link which shows infant mortality peaked in the 1940s where over 80 babies born alive per 1,000 babies died.
This I assume could be associated with WW2 and food being rationed.

super_furry

Responsible? The only response from the Catholic church will be another cover-up and they'll do everything in their power to frustrate any investigation. Again.

I'd love to hear what their spokesperson Terry Prone has to say about this latest discovery, given the letter she sent to Saskia Webber.

http://www.thejournal.ie/terry-prone-email-tuam-babies-site-1721252-Oct2014/

Wasn't this the graveyard though?
I mean it's common knowledge that they buried hundreds of babies and children in a mass grave here.
Disgusting behaviour, not too shocking though unfortunately

RobertKK

I think people forget that it is families who sent their daughters and sisters to these places.
I know a person who had a baby in that period, it is something one to this day would not speak about, as her family made her give away the baby for adoption, I am not suppose to know any of this, so I never ever go near that subject with that person who is a very kind lady and who would have made a great mother. I am sure it hurts her what happened, but I think families are responsible for a lot of this, to avoid shame of the unmarried mothers...

Yourself isit

sugarman wrote: »

No, 1922-1998!

It is absolutely sickening and this is only the tip of the iceberg. There will be hundreds of thousands of more bodies discovered in the years to come.

The level of abuse and oppression the catholic church has brought to this island has caused more hurt than any other organization or nation in our history.

Since independence, yes. Before no.

How anyone can support and continue to have faith in an organization that not only covered up child abuse and murder but continue to let it happend and deny all wrong doing!

This needs to be treated as a murder investigation. The church needs to be held responsible.

Well there will be nobody alive to prosecute.

jaja321

RobertKK wrote: »

I think people forget that it is families who sent their daughters and sisters to these places.
I know a person who had a baby in that period, it is something one to this day would not speak about, as her family made her give away the baby for adoption, I am not suppose to know any of this, so I never ever go near that subject with that person who is a very kind lady and who would have made a great mother. I am sure it hurts her what happened, but I think families are responsible for a lot of this, to avoid shame of the unmarried mothers...

Sure, but where did that shame come from?

Donal55

Another Inquiry on the horizon.

seamus

RobertKK wrote: »

In that period on my father's said he had a brother who was around 2 years old when he died.
My mother had a brother who was 16 years old who died from pneumonia in that same time period.
I am not making excuses for anyone, just simply, young people died from things that one would not expect in this modern era.

Yes, of course. But the mortality rates in these homes were 2 - 3 times the national average.

In a place that was masquerading as a care home for mothers and children, a child mortality rate that's multiples of the national average can only happen if there was severe, even deliberate mistreatment of the residents.

whisky_galore

Donal55 wrote: »

Another Inquiry on the horizon.

Doubt it.

For all the good it would do at this remove.

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This post has been deleted.

RobertKK

jaja321 wrote: »

Sure, but where did that shame come from?

I think it came from pride, like every cover up, it is a case of Mrs Bucket and keeping up appearances.
These places existed because they were handy for families to hide what they considered to be their black sheep.
I suspect for some of these families they were happy for the secret to end up dead, because they were certainly not going to be welcomed into the family.

I remember growing up, there use to be people on RTE radio 1 complaining in the 1980's and maybe into the 1990's about single mothers getting support off the state. People saying the state is encouraging single women to have babies and it was a disgrace.
It is not that long ago where the single mother was seen as someone inferior and morally suspect.
It took decades for attitudes to change.

jaja321

RobertKK wrote: »

I think it came from pride, like every cover up, it is a case of Mrs Bucket and keeping up appearances.
These places existed because they were handy for families to hide what they considered to be their black sheep.
I suspect for some of these families they were happy for the secret to end up dead, because they were certainly not going to be welcomed into the family.

I remember growing up, there use to be people on RTE radio 1 complaining in the 1980's and maybe into the 1990's about single mothers getting support off the state. People saying the state is encouraging single women to have babies and it was a disgrace.
It is not that long ago where the single mother was seen as someone inferior and morally suspect.
It took decades for attitudes to change.

Think you might be missing the point I was trying to make. The attitude that there was something shameful to being an unmarried mother came largely from the church and was enforced by the state, through lack of supports etc.

Graces7

RobertKK wrote: »

I think people forget that it is families who sent their daughters and sisters to these places.
I know a person who had a baby in that period, it is something one to this day would not speak about, as her family made her give away the baby for adoption, I am not suppose to know any of this, so I never ever go near that subject with that person who is a very kind lady and who would have made a great mother. I am sure it hurts her what happened, but I think families are responsible for a lot of this, to avoid shame of the unmarried mothers...

Robert; even f that were totally fully true?

The babies were given to the Church to be cared for; they were not cared for. The blame is of the Church.

You know my loyalty BUT loyalty takes a poor second place to this atrocity.

Have been watching the Tuam situation and the Tribunal . not just Tuam but mother/baby homes all over Ireland

There is no excuse, no defence.

Trust was abused. Massively and culbably

RobertKK

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

But it was families who projected that shame onto family members.

It was a different society back then, and the world in general from 1920s up to the 1960's was often a very dark place.

valoren

It is incredibly disturbing. A number of samples taken are presumed to from the 1950's.

To understand the mindset of that period, I am reminded of what my dad told us when he was a child of about 5 or 6, in the mid-50's. He was playing football near a protestant church. For those familiar with Cork, it would be the St Anne's graveyard on the grounds of Shandon. It was a protestant graveyard. He said his grandmother at the time threatened him that he should never, under any circumstances, enter that graveyard. If he did, she said the devil would set him on fire.

To be that deluded, deranged in their thinking about the nature of God, to have such an unhinged, ignorant outlook on life is incredibly disturbing. He never dared go into that place. Now someone had to bury those babies and children. No doubt they viewed those babies and those children as the spawn of Satan. Burying them would be too respectful a word. That they threw them into septic tanks full of sh1t, would not have taken any toll on them mentally. They, whoever they are, were doing God's work. I understand the argument that mortality rates were high, health standards were low. But there is no justification for what happened, for how they were treated in death. They died. And they were thrown out like the 'godless' trash they were regarded as.

Throwing babies and children into filthy septic tanks was them doing God's work.
They didn't know any better, never stood a chance, were never given a chance, treated like animals.

Nobody will ever know their names. They were statistics.

The whole history of the M&B homes is for me personally our national digrace.

spurious

Jesus wept. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse.

I vote we let them control and run primary schools.

Graces7

RobertKK wrote: »

I think it came from pride, like every cover up, it is a case of Mrs Bucket and keeping up appearances.
These places existed because they were handy for families to hide what they considered to be their black sheep.
I suspect for some of these families they were happy for the secret to end up dead, because they were certainly not going to be welcomed into the family.

I remember growing up, there use to be people on RTE radio 1 complaining in the 1980's and maybe into the 1990's about single mothers getting support off the state. People saying the state is encouraging single women to have babies and it was a disgrace.
It is not that long ago where the single mother was seen as someone inferior and morally suspect.
It took decades for attitudes to change.

It came from the Church in the extent and extremes to which it was carried out. To compare this tragedy with Mrs Bucket... Sorry Robert, but wrong.

Babies were to be cared for and they were not. Period. And no graves. Whereas the sisters at Tuam? They had fine graves and when they lfet, they took the coffins with them, reburied the sistrs with a fine monument.

What I have bolded is not worthy of you and is not true. There are women searching for their babies to this day.

RobertKK

Graces7 wrote: »

Robert; even f that were totally fully true?

The babies were given to the Church to be cared for; they were not cared for. The blame is of the Church.

You know my loyalty BUT loyalty takes a poor second place to this atrocity.

Have been watching the Tuam situation and the Tribunal . not just Tuam but mother/baby homes all over Ireland

There is no excuse, no defence.

Trust was abused. Massively and culbably

I agree, I do however think some people didn't care about their unmarried daughter/sister and didn't care what treatment they or their baby got in such a place, the 'problem' was out of sight.
I think a lot of the deaths were from having a lot of young in buildings that were not suitable, not clean enough, not warm enough, maybe not enough food, no electricity for some of that period, no running water and the nuns 'mother and baby homes' were a dumping ground to hide family secrets.
Yes they deserved the best of care, but how suitable were these places to start with.
Then the treatment of the dead...I think a cover up not only helped the nuns but families who wanted secrets kept hidden - all of which was totally wrong.

screamer

So very sad, children should be cherished above all. Sometimes, I feel ashamed to be Irish, for such a small nation we have a very dark, disturbing past relating to the church and our children.
Little angels, rest in peace.

Graces7

Just read the report and am weeping.

Because of some work I do, I though I knew the worst; been dreading this breaking... but it is far far worse than we thought it would be

Shame on them. utter shame on them.

And this is only the start of the tribunal findings. There is far far more to come.

There is no defence possible in any way. None. And I a faithful Catholic say that. No .

Not even going to read excuses now.

RobertKK

Graces7 wrote: »

It came from the Church in the extent and extremes to which it was carried out. To compare this tragedy with Mrs Bucket... Sorry Robert, but wrong.

Babies were to be cared for and they were not. Period. And no graves. Whereas the sisters at Tuam? They had fine graves and when they lfet, they took the coffins with them, reburied the sistrs with a fine monument.

What I have bolded is not worthy of you and is not true. There are women searching for their babies to this day.

But that is what some families were doing, hiding away the secrets they didn't want known, to keep up appearances.

There was always going to be some mortality when in that period infant mortality for the country as a whole went above 80/1,000 live births.
There is no excuse for how their remains were treated, and I can bet the nuns were not dumped into their grounds like the innocent young were.

elperello

super_furry wrote: »

Responsible? The only response from the Catholic church will be another cover-up and they'll do everything in their power to frustrate any investigation. Again.

I'd love to hear what their spokesperson Terry Prone has to say about this latest discovery, given the letter she sent to Saskia Webber.

http://www.thejournal.ie/terry-prone-email-tuam-babies-site-1721252-Oct2014/

She happened to be on Sean O'Rourke when the story broke. He didn't quite get the ball over the line.
http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=b9%5F10692113%5F15036%5F03%2D03%2D2017%5F

Graces7

RobertKK wrote: »

I agree, I do however think some people didn't care about their unmarried daughter/sister and didn't care what treatment they or their baby got in such a place, the 'problem' was out of sight.
I think a lot of the deaths were from having a lot of young in buildings that were not suitable, not clean enough, not warm enough, maybe not enough food, no electricity for some of that period, no running water and the nuns 'mother and baby homes' were a dumping ground to hide family secrets.
Yes they deserved the best of care, but how suitable were these places to start with.
Then the treatment of the dead...I think a cover up not only helped the nuns but families who wanted secrets kept hidden - all of which was totally wrong.

Robert. I know you are trying to see some way in this but truly there is none. There truly is not and it is great darkness for many of us faithful ones to see and say that.

There is no excuse, no defence. Not one iota.

The Church had more than enough money to care for every child. Still does.

The Church took on the duty of care and betrayed that sacred trust time and again. I sit here shaking and weeping but knowing th truth of it.

No defence, no excuse.

Joeytheparrot

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Very shocked by the news coming from Tuam

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/tuam-babies-significant-quantities-of-human-remains-discovered-at-excavation-site-35498856.html

According to Kitty Holland we are talking about hundreds of remains of babies and toddlers

Im not shocked at all.

The Backwards Man

Robert's completely unbiased an in no way deflective analysis has me convinced that it was all the fault of the families that dumped unmarried mothers in these homes, and not the cruel vindictive authoritarian church whose regime they were under the spell of.


The whole family tree of every child should be charged with murder, even they weren't even born at the time, in my opionion
Anyone else?

screamer

Graces7 wrote: »

Robert. I know you are trying to see some way in this but truly there is none. There truly is not and it is great darkness for many of us faithful ones to see and say that.

There is no excuse, no defence. Not one iota.

The Church had more than enough money to care for every child. Still does.

The Church took on the duty of care and betrayed that sacred trust time and again. I sit here shaking and weeping but knowing th truth of it.

No defence, no excuse.

And the worst part Graces, there will be no justice and no one held accountable for those lost little lives, no one.

dav3

super_furry wrote: »

Responsible? The only response from the Catholic church will be another cover-up and they'll do everything in their power to frustrate any investigation. Again.

I'd love to hear what their spokesperson Terry Prone has to say about this latest discovery, given the letter she sent to Saskia Webber.

http://www.thejournal.ie/terry-prone-email-tuam-babies-site-1721252-Oct2014/

We may as well quote the lowlife's email just to remind people who the scumbags in Ireland are.

Terry Prone
Bon SecoursYour letter was sent on to me by the Provincial of the Irish Bon Secours congregation with instructions that I should help you. I’m not sure how I can. Let me explain.When the “O My God – mass grave in West of Ireland” broke in an English-owned paper (the Mail) it surprised the hell out of everybody, not least the Sisters of Bon Secours in Ireland, none of whom had ever worked in Tuam and most of whom had never heard of it.If you come here, you’ll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying “Yeah, a few bones were found – but this was an area where Famine victims were buried. So?”Several international TV stations have aborted their plans to make documentaries, because essentially all that can be said is “Ireland in the first half of the twentieth century was a moralistic, inward-looking, anti-feminist country of exagerrated religiousity.”Which most of us knew already.The overwhelming majority of the surviving Sisters of Bon Secours in Ireland are over eighty. The handful (literally) still in active ministry are in their seventies. None of them is an historian or sociologist or theologian and so wouldn’t have the competence to be good on your programme.
If you’d like me to point you at a few reputable historians who might be good, I’ll certainly do that.
Terry Prone (Ms)
Chairman
The Communications Clinic

archer22

RobertKK wrote: »

But it was families who projected that shame onto family members.

It was a different society back then, and the world in general from 1920s up to the 1960's was often a very dark place.

You are correct Robert, they didn't have to send family members to those places.
My Grandmother was born out of wedlock but her family rallied round her and her mother and supported them.The priests who turned up trying to get them for their abuse camps got short shift and had to run for their lives.

But they were strong minded people who didn't give a flying fock what the neighbours thought.
Many others unfortunately were more concerned about their image than about their own flesh and blood

jimgoose

These people were in the business of selling "fresh" babies for money. To that end, skilled accountants as many of them were, keeping the "cost of goods sold" as it were, minimal was of great concern. This meant minimal food, minimal heating, minimal medical care, minimal everything. Including funeral expense. The State were certainly in collusion with this, given that it was a far cheaper option than doing it's duty in this matter. For money. At this point I am all for declaring this an attempted genocide, a military matter, and shooting a few of these disgusting rat-bastards in the yard at Dublin Castle. :mad:

ScouseMouse

As a non-practicing roman catholic, I despair when I read this ****.

I really do. Such a shower or hypocrites and liars.

I feel ashamed

Snickers Man

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

It should be treated as a crime scene

Why?

Genuine question: what is the law concerning the disposal of recently deceased human corpses, and is it any different now to what it was during the life time of this Mother and Baby Home?

I know there is a requirement to acquire a death certificate and inform the authorities when somebody has died, but this WAS done in respect of these deaths. In fact it was these very records that allowed the story to be unearthed after a local historian on her own time and dime searched the records and amassed the information about the number of deaths for which there was no public memorial.

I genuinely don't know the answer to the question I posed. I know that a neighbour of mine who died a few years ago left his body to science and after a while his family were given whatever was left which was then cremated and the ashes buried in his garden. No headstone or memorial for him but his family know what happened to him.

By the way has anybody noticed that the Commission's statement specifically says that the remains were NOT found in the septic tank? (Read it here)They were found in a structure whose purpose has yet to be determined. The implication is that it is very probably something that was used as a cess pool long before the building became a mother and baby home.

I'm not here to defend the Church. Given their sanctimony about the proper Catholic treatment of mortal remains, including their subsequent admonitions on what one can and cannot do with cremated remains (good job my neighbour was a Protestant) they are hypocritical in the extreme in their callousness over these graves.

But if there was a crime, what was it? Is there any suggestion (I don't believe there is) that any of the deaths were deliberate. Maybe we should calm down and approach this whole situation rationally.

elperello

Snickers Man wrote: »

Why?

Genuine question: what is the law concerning the disposal of recently deceased human corpses, and is it any different now to what it was during the life time of this Mother and Baby Home?

I know there is a requirement to acquire a death certificate and inform the authorities when somebody has died, but this WAS done in respect of these deaths. In fact it was these very records that allowed the story to be unearthed after a local historian on her own time and dime searched the records and amassed the information about the number of deaths for which there was no public memorial.

I genuinely don't know the answer to the question I posed. I know that a neighbour of mine who died a few years ago left his body to science and after a while his family were given whatever was left which was then cremated and the ashes buried in his garden. No headstone or memorial for him but his family know what happened to him.

By the way has anybody noticed that the Commission's statement specifically says that the remains were NOT found in the septic tank? (Read it here)They were found in a structure whose purpose has yet to be determined. The implication is that it is very probably something that was used as a cess pool long before the building became a mother and baby home.

I'm not here to defend the Church. Given their sanctimony about the proper Catholic treatment of mortal remains, including their subsequent admonitions on what one can and cannot do with cremated remains (good job my neighbour was a Protestant) they are hypocritical in the extreme in their callousness over these graves.

But if there was a crime, what was it? Is there any suggestion (I don't believe there is) that any of the deaths were deliberate. Maybe we should calm down and approach this whole situation rationally.

To preserve evidence.
There is at the very least a prima facie case.
Agree with your call for calm.

seamus

RobertKK wrote: »

But that is what some families were doing, hiding away the secrets they didn't want known, to keep up appearances.

Some families, like you say. In many cases the local priest and/or bishop put immense pressure on the family to do this, even getting the Gardai involved to take the single mother away on the say-so of the priest.

Ascribing free will and consent to these actions is ridiculous; in most cases there was no choice involved or at the very least no real choice was ever presented.

My mother's mother died in childbirth in the 1950s leaving my grandfather with 5 kids. The local parish priest arrived down to the house and "decreed" that this wouldn't do and arranged with the department of health to have the kids "collected" and shipped to 3 different children's homes. Think about it - WTF business does the parish priest have getting at all involved in this situation? Apparently absolute authority in 1950s - he could call in the state to enforce the church's will.
The only way they called off the state was by my grandaunt moving into the house full-time to become the childrens' carer.

Families who found themselves with a pregnant unmarried daughter didn't have this luxury and found their children being basically abducted and kept prisoner in these homes.

Akrasia

Graces7 wrote: »

Robert; even f that were totally fully true?

The babies were given to the Church to be cared for; they were not cared for. The blame is of the Church.

You know my loyalty BUT loyalty takes a poor second place to this atrocity.

Have been watching the Tuam situation and the Tribunal . not just Tuam but mother/baby homes all over Ireland

There is no excuse, no defence.

Trust was abused. Massively and culbably

Exactly. Every catholic in Ireland was donating money to the church every Sunday, they had enough land and property and money to feed clothe and provide medical care for these children, but they chose to let them die

o1s1n

ScouseMouse wrote: »

As a non-practicing roman catholic, I despair when I read this ****.

I really do. Such a shower or hypocrites and liars.

I feel ashamed

Very easy way to stop feeling such shame, stop considering yourself a catholic and you're no longer associated with that scum

Akrasia

RobertKK wrote: »

But it was families who projected that shame onto family members.

It was a different society back then, and the world in general from 1920s up to the 1960's was often a very dark place.

Yes, because we were basically a client state of the vatican. When we started to escape from the doctrinal thumb of the catholic church in the 1990s, that is when attitudes began to change, corporal punishment became illegal, access to contraception became legal and more widely available, divorce was allowed and the censorship of our art and media was relaxed.

The heart of the shame was the catholic guilt that was drilled into everyone from a young age that sex is a sin and dirty and that sex outside of marriage is unthinkable and children born outside of marriage are 'illegitimate'

As soon as the laws were relaxed, attitudes changed almost immediately.

You can see this now that gay marriage is legal, there are thousands of people who opposed it in the referendum, who realise now that the world hasn't collapsed around them, their own marriages haven't been 'devalued' and our country is a better place because we are more inclusive.

lazybones32

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

Very shocked by the news coming from Tuam

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/news/tuam-babies-significant-quantities-of-human-remains-discovered-at-excavation-site-35498856.html

According to Kitty Holland we are talking about hundreds of remains of babies and toddlers

And how much is "significant quantities"?
I don't see what causes you such shock - even the picture in the link shows that it is known there are people buried there. They had enough time to put up a plaque.

People need to tread carefully before swallowing whatever the papers print - they've already had to issue an apology for deliberately misleading in relation to this issue.

nelly17

I don't think Holding the church accountable is ever going to be done - But, the state was complicit in allowing the church to behave in this way and turn a blind eye because the state did not have the will or indeed probably the resources (or the knowledge) to deal with the issue.

I think the state should carryout an investigation into ANY suspected burial site so that we the people have a reasonably accurate view of The State and the Churches mistreatment of Women and Children in Ireland and we for once and for get a view of the scale of the mistreatment in those dark days.

There are many siblings of these children walking around today and the people have a right to know.

Jayop

Absolutely disgusting but no surprise and surely there will be more of these in the years to come. Embarrassed to be Irish right now when this genocide and the other crimes that happened in such huge numbers were allowed to go on for decades.

Eponymous

As a Catholic I am deeply shamed and troubled by this.

I wonder if those who shove the so-called "Right to life" down our throats will have much to say about the treatment by the church and its institutions of the living.

Then to put the remains in a sewage containment system... Sickening. Complete disregard at every level.

Jayop

Eponymous wrote: »

As a Catholic I am deeply shamed and troubled by this.

I wonder if those who shove the so-called "Right to life" down our throats will have much to say about the treatment by the church and its institutions of the living.

Then to put the remains in a sewage containment system... Sickening. Complete disregard at every level.

It's simple. They're pro birth, not pro life once the kids are born they don't give a shinny **** about them.

dav3

Snickers Man wrote: »

But if there was a crime, what was it? Is there any suggestion (I don't believe there is) that any of the deaths were deliberate. Maybe we should calm down and approach this whole situation rationally.

People have certainly remained calm since the beginning of this investigation which has lasted a number of years. I don't see many people being irrational.
The only irrational behaviour since this story came to light has been from the people trying to cover it up.

The fact that certain people tried so desperately to cover it up and even now are trying to deflect, would suggest it's not a straight forward case. The mortality rates alone in these mother and baby homes were extremely high.

Again, we need to remind people about this. A piece from nearly 3 years ago.

http://www.thejournal.ie/explainer-tuam-babies-1502773-Jun2014/

Were some children at Mother and Baby Homes used for medical research?
This is a contentious issue. There was some evidence that the bodies of some children from Mother and Baby Homes were given to anatomy departments in Irish universities for medical research. A Prime Time documentary from three years ago covered this issue.
If this did happen – and there’s no evidence either way as of yet – then it could explain what happened to some of the 796 children.

How did the children die? Were they killed? Poorly treated? Died naturally?
Some of the certificates Catherine Corless received showed the cause of death for the children mainly involved illnesses – such as measles and gastroenteritis which spread quickly in the cramped conditions – or malnutrition.

What about the reports of medical trials carried out on the children?
A researcher at UCC has found evidence that more than 3,000 children in 24 residential institutions were subjected to experimental vaccine trials in the 1930s. Historian Michael Dwyer said no record of the trials can be found in Government files from the time, but that the details instead were published in medical journals.
“This suggests that vaccine trials would not have been acceptable to government, municipal authorities or the general public,” he said.

Was the mortality rate really that much higher at The Home than for other children?
An average of 22 children died every year at The Home, meaning one died every 2.3 weeks on average. This rate is significantly higher than Ireland’s infant mortality rates at the time.

Is there any chance that this could be a one-off?
No. UCD historian Lindsey Earner-Byrne who has researched this area extensively has said that Tuam was not exceptional.
“That 800 number will be replicated, and [be] higher in other homes,” she said on RTE.
She said she was surprised by the mass grave but not by the numbers, noting that all the mother-and-baby homes shared the common trait of very high infant mortality rates, “significantly higher than the mortality rates for ‘legitimate’ babies”.
In her book, she noted the death rates at some of these unmarried mother’s homes:

• Bessboro home in Cork had an infant mortality rate of 61 per cent in 1943
• Shan Ross Abbey in Roscrea had a rate of 35 per cent in the same year
• The Home in Tuam had a rate of 35 per cent in the same year