"Significant" numbers of babies remains actually found

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

RobertKK

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.

I don't see any defense for anyone apart for the mothers and babies who were dumped/born in these places, and who were given no choice.

nelly17

Isint the pope on Twitter? Let tweet him and get his thoughts

Akrasia

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?....
... 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.

There are plenty of suggestions that at least som of the children died due to neglect, and this is homicide.

You don't get an infant mortality rate death rate of 34% in one year for no reason.

Laying out in stark detail the staggeringly high number of children who were dying in the home each year, it reveals:

* 34 per cent of children died in the home in 1943;
* 25 per cent died in 1944;

* 23 per cent died in 1945.
More than one-in-four (27 per cent) of children living in the home in 1946 lost their lives that year.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/children-at-tuam-home-were-emaciated-and-starved-30337248.html

This was at a time when many people were dirt poor, had poor access to doctors or medication, and still managed to keep their kids alive better than an institution that was specifically set up to care for mothers and their infant children.

It is also a crime to fail to report deaths to the authorities. The census figures don't appear to match the number of bodies in these mass graves.

SEPT 23 1989

I forgot they used the children for medical experiments:mad:

RobertKK

The Backwards Man wrote: »

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?

I think there is a lot of blame to go around for what happened.

endacl

mynamejeff wrote: »

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

wasnt the rate of infant mortality very high historically then ?

The septic tank however, was not introduced to the UK until the latter years of the 19th century. The site in question can't be explained away with 'sure those remains are probably much older than the institution'.

This isn't just an Irish or Catholic thing either.
Many many hundreds, if not thousands of English children from the same kind of homes were shipped off to Canada or Australia over the years. It was cheaper for the state then keep them.
In Australia, the state took aboriginal children away from their families and placed them in white homes.
It appears to me that it was something that happened, of a time, it was everybody's attitude.

We should be grateful we live now, when children are protected as much as possible

Autonomous Cowherd

Terrible shameful revelations. Remember when we were so appalled about the Romanians and their dreadful orphanages?....I'm sure people reading about this in far flung parts of the world will feel the same way about the Irish nation.

The whole story of the influence of the Catholic church on our societies activities and values in relation to unwed mothers and ''illegitimate'' children is a stark lesson in the effectiveness of mind programming techniques. That peer pressure and the voice of authority can be so successful in overcoming natural human love and familial protection in favour of a cruel regime that will not be gainsayed. We wonder how the Nazis flourished in ordinary German society - and yet we have our own demonstration of how.

The whole of society, bar some strong rebels, knew and accepted what was going on in these places, looked down enthusiastically on the ''fallen'' women, traded and doffed the cap at the doors of the mother and baby homes, looked the other way as poorer members of society were abused (in every way imaginable). Don't tell me people did not know. They did. Even as a child I sensed it, the hypocrisy, the arrogance, the wilful blindness, the holier than thou programming that made cruel accomplices out of vast swathes of people.
And I say this as someone who experienced the dying sting of this judgmental regime as a young ''unwed'' mother when everyone thought those days were surely gone.

Graces7

screamer wrote: »

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

Not in this life and believe me I wish it were otherwise.

Nothing will bring them back....

I knew years ago of much of this. Same is happening in eg Canada, where the church actually put children down with injections like animals. google Canadian Holocaust

They were Irish nuns and brs and priests too.

Been on the phone to family there just now. cannot get warm. Knew this was comeing but not this bad.

endacl

bubblypop wrote: »

This isn't just an Irish or Catholic thing either.
Many many hundreds, if not thousands of English children from the same kind of homes were shipped off to Canada or Australia over the years. It was cheaper for the state then keep them.
In Australia, the state took aboriginal children away from their families and placed them in white homes.
It appears to me that it was something that happened, of a time, it was everybody's attitude.

We should be grateful we live now, when children are protected as much as possible

Kinda was a catholic thing there too.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-06/royal-commission-into-child-sexual-abuse-begins-in-sydney/8242600