"Significant" numbers of babies remains actually found

Mr.Wemmick

Deleted User wrote: »

Catherine Corless was on the Late Late tonight. She got a huge standing ovation at the end of it. I haven't seen that since October 1994.

One man in the audience spoke about how the local RCC priest knocked on his grandfather's door in a Galway village in the late 1940s and told him that he had a member of his family in the house that was bringing disgrace upon the village and she (the mother of the man in the audience) must be brought to the local home for "disgraced" women. The man, not having a car, put his daughter (who was 7 months pregnant) on his bicycle and cycled 20 miles to the home to leave his daughter with these caring souls.

Just seen the Late Late on RTE player. Catherine Corless should be held up as a true Irish hero for not allowing herself to be fobbed off or intimidated, she just followed the truth. A huge standing ovation she certainly deserves, and more.. may this be the start of uncovering the truth in all the other mother and baby homes in Ireland.

Colser

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

Just seen the Late Late on RTE player. Catherine Corless should be held up as a true Irish hero for not allowing herself to be fobbed off or intimidated, she just followed the truth. A huge standing ovation she certainly deserves, and more.. may this be the start of uncovering the truth in all the other mother and baby homes in Ireland.

I also hope that it will encourage the many women that are still alive and still suffering to get help and speak to someone about what they went through in the homes..I believe that many of them are suffering in silence and even their husbands/partners/children don't even know that they were in homes or had babies...it's a huge pain to bear and worse when it's a secret.

I honestly think that the Catherine Cordless has shown that the shame should be laid at the doors of those who had any hand or act in treating the mothers and babies in any way less than humanely and also that every possible help should be given to those that live every day wondering what happened to their babies that they loved but weren't allowed to keep.

Apologies or any enquiries are of little use now imo..most people know what happened so time and effort should be put into what happened after the births not trying to decide if the homes were fit for purpose for pregnant women..we always knew the answer to that question.

Colser

Colser wrote: »

I also hope that it will encourage the many women that are still alive and still suffering to get help and speak to someone about what they went through in the homes..I believe that many of them are suffering in silence and even their husbands/partners/children don't even know that they were in homes or had babies...it's a huge pain to bear and worse when it's a secret.

I honestly think that the Catherine Cordless has shown that the shame should be laid at the doors of those who had any hand or act in treating the mothers and babies in any way less than humanely and also that every possible help should be given to those that live every day wondering what happened to their babies that they loved but weren't allowed to keep.

Apologies or any enquiries are of little use now imo..most people know what happened so time and effort should be put into what happened after the births not trying to decide if the homes were fit for purpose for pregnant women..we always knew the answer to that question.

Absolutely. So many people are still looking for answers - and they deserve to get those answers, too.

Angry bird

Terry Prone has been remarkably quiet lately, not like her as the rep for the order to be so shy.

end of the road

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Yes, yes. Only one way is correct today. And another way was correct in the past. Another one again will be correct in the future. To think that we are at 'peak morality' is a ludicrous conceit.

wrong. another way was not correct in the past. all that happened to innocent women and children in the name of whatever at the hands of church run homes, was never correct. end of story

Esel

Wheeliebin30 wrote: »

What abuse are we talking about here

I thought there was physical and sexual abuse but I cant find anything.

All I can see from reports is psychological abuse and not physical abuse?

I'm trying to find stories of other abuse can anyone put up some links?

Malnutrition, starvation, 'dying rooms', mass burials - is that physical enough for you?

BlinkingLights

Ireland was a very, very strange ultra conservative backwater. I think we somehow overlook just how crazy this place was.

You'd church control of everything in terms of public policy with a political system thay felt this was absolutely fine.

No divorce, because Irish marriages didn't break up
No contraception for much of the 20th century and highly restricted until the 1990s
Still no access to legal abortion even where someone is raped.
In the past : extreme censorship and banning or books, films and publications of all sorts.
Absolute control of the education system by religious organisations and we are still wringing our hands about doing anything about allowing religious organisations to effectively exclude children from public schools in enrolment policies thay favour their flock first.

Then use or institutionalisation of anyone who was non conforming was on a scale that has very few parallels internationally too. It's actually a horrific period of Irish history and we need to understand it to move forward without repeating and compounding the horrors.

The list goes on and on.

Ireland wasn't a normal country, it was a bizzare conservative state with an obsession with nationalism and religion. It changed dramatically in the late 20th century and has become a normal liberal democracy, but it's been a very long journey.

I think we need to accept Ireland was very screwed up in the recent past and we still have legacy issues that we need to deal with.

please helpThank YOU

so your having sex with some one . say a man and women and you both having sex for 30 mins and next the man our women says stop your raping me and he our she said nothing for the first 30 mins just changed there minds in the middle of sex for what ever reason and the other person dos stop but when told. the other person calls the garda/police and says your raping them is this rape next the same person all over ever newspaper and no one is speaking to them next the feel so lost the take there own life you can see this happening in Ireland

222233

Esel wrote: »

Malnutrition, starvation, 'dying rooms', mass burials - is that physical enough for you?

I'm pretty sure some of the maternity practices would border on physical abuse also...

The Rape of Lucretia

end of the road wrote: »

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Yes, yes. Only one way is correct today. And another way was correct in the past. Another one again will be correct in the future. To think that we are at 'peak morality' is a ludicrous conceit.

wrong. another way was not correct in the past. all that happened to innocent women and children in the name of whatever at the hands of church run homes, was never correct. end of story

Saying, end of story, does not win an argument you know (unless you are under even).

It was correc in the context of its time, even if you cannot see it from your limited view of todays standards. The majority are very blinkered to the prevailing standards of their day.
What happened to those people, indeed horrific to us, was perfectly acceptable to those who did it, and their contemporaries who created and were part of the culture that enabled it.

The Rape of Lucretia

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Saying, end of story, does not win an argument you know (unless you are under even).

It was correc in the context of its time, even if you cannot see it from your limited view of todays standards. The majority are very blinkered to the prevailing standards of their day.
What happened to those people, indeed horrific to us, was perfectly acceptable to those who did it, and their contemporaries who created and were part of the culture that enabled it.

Then why did so many people refuse to accept it? Why was my mother horrified, even decades later, at what her friend endured? Why did so many Grandmothers raise their Grandchildren as their own?

Why did so many Mothers not want to give up their babies? Or widowed Mothers and Fathers fight to get their children back from the state homes?

Saying it was "correct" or "perfectly acceptable" doesn't make it so, either.

Some people found it acceptable. Many others did not.

Esel

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Saying, end of story, does not win an argument you know (unless you are under even).

It was correc in the context of its time, even if you cannot see it from your limited view of todays standards. The majority are very blinkered to the prevailing standards of their day.
What happened to those people, indeed horrific to us, was perfectly acceptable to those who did it, and their contemporaries who created and were part of the culture that enabled it.

Why are you here? There must be an active Chinese tyre thread somewhere on the internet.

Graces7

Esel wrote: »

Why are you here? There must be an active Chinese tyre thread somewhere on the internet.

I think Rape of Lucretia is a priest or sister.

Graces7

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/archbishop-of-tuam-says-mother-and-baby-home-inquiry-should-look-at-society-781201.html

Buck passing and then some.

Incidentally if folk here really want answers to some of what they are asking? Read the Ryan and Murphy reports. All online and very thorough and objective writing.

Not easy reading though.

Samaris

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Yes, yes. Only one way is correct today. And another way was correct in the past. Another one again will be correct in the future. To think that we are at 'peak morality' is a ludicrous conceit.

Well, no, we'll never be at "peak morality", whatever that is. But that does not mean that evils committed during the lifetimes of many people still alive in Ireland today should not be investigated and condemned. How do you think morality develops? It's not by accepting whenever something terrible comes out that bad things happened five, ten, twenty years ago. Yes, there does come a point where one has to just accept it was a different time, but it's generally not within one's own lifetime, not when people died of it and not when those who suffered from it are still alive and still suffer.

We're so ready as a country to condemn, then to panic, condemn everyone, condemn no-one, cover it up and forget it again. What good does that do anyone? And all it says to the victims is "you are alone, everyone was against you and everyone still is. You matter less than my peace of mind."

Graces7 wrote: »

And be honest; would YOU do that? No anonymous in a small town remember!

I don't know, that's why I was curious. I was born in and grew up in the same city in which there was still an "active" laundry, although it closed down (it was the last of them) when I was still too young to really understand what it was. In your case, you saw the fear that made people not speak out and that's fair enough, I can certainly see that as an issue. I do still think that normalisation played a part - it's much easier to stand against a new awful issue than one that has been part of society since growing up. It's a more passive issue than fear, which is an active force that stops people from doing something (or makes them do somethng), but it's a powerful one.

arayess

Graces7 wrote: »

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/archbishop-of-tuam-says-mother-and-baby-home-inquiry-should-look-at-society-781201.html

Buck passing and then some.

Incidentally if folk here really want answers to some of what they are asking? Read the Ryan and Murphy reports. All online and very thorough and objective writing.

Not easy reading though.

he has a point and a fairly valid one.

the church were clearly at fault - that goes without saying - but society let this happen. The church had an influence but it wasn't legally binding that women ended up in these homes.
they were sent there by family and society as whole needs to face the reality of what it has done.

people who put doctrine and saving face ahead of the needs of their daughters, children and grandchildren.
They knew what these places were
That's a stain on all of society.

hang the church and the state all you want they deserve it , but the people deserve to be damned also.

volchitsa

This "it's all our fault" stain on society thing is really getting on my wick.

People didn't "all know" that babies' bodies were being dumped in unconsecrated ground, and I don't believe everyone knew anything like the extent of the cruelty either. Why else would they have had to put on a different face when inspectors came around for the pre-announced visits? Because it wasnt acceptable and they knew it.

sondagefaux

Standing ovation for Catherine Corless.

sondagefaux

Can someone please tell me what these children did wrong?

Mr.Wemmick

Graces7 wrote: »

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/archbishop-of-tuam-says-mother-and-baby-home-inquiry-should-look-at-society-781201.html

Buck passing and then some.

Incidentally if folk here really want answers to some of what they are asking? Read the Ryan and Murphy reports. All online and very thorough and objective writing.

Not easy reading though.

I did read them and yes, I agree, they were very hard going. Endemic and systemic abuse/neglect proven again and again in homes and institutions all over the country.

volchitsa wrote: »

This "it's all our fault" stain on society thing is really getting on my wick.

People didn't "all know" that babies' bodies were being dumped in unconsecrated ground, and I don't believe everyone knew anything like the extent of the cruelty either. Why else would they have had to put on a different face when inspectors came around for the pre-announced visits? Because it wasnt acceptable and they knew it.

This is certainly consistent from what I was told about my grand-aunt who had a baby outside of marriage. Who, when visited by her mother/sisters, was clearly terrified of the Nun standing behind her and never spoke freely to her family. On each visit she got thinner and sicker, until she died. Like prison, only worse.. more like a c. camp. From the account I have been told it sure sounds like my grandaunt was beaten, traumatized and starved to death.

I also remember reading in the Murphy/Ryan report the rooms were freezing and often children didn't have enough bedclothes or warm clothes or warm food in winter exacerbating illness or infection given their little bodies no immunity or strength to fight. Those poor unloved babies - heartbreaking!

ChikiChiki

volchitsa wrote: »

This "it's all our fault" stain on society thing is really getting on my wick.

People didn't "all know" that babies' bodies were being dumped in unconsecrated ground, and I don't believe everyone knew anything like the extent of the cruelty either. Why else would they have had to put on a different face when inspectors came around for the pre-announced visits? Because it wasnt acceptable and they knew it.

It starts with bad governance. FF & FG have been useless since the foundation of the state.

volchitsa

ChikiChiki wrote: »

It starts with bad governance. FF & FG have been useless since the foundation of the state.

So how would you suggest the average person, possibly not very well educated and probably finding it hard enough to make ends meet for their own families as things were, could change that themselves? Take up arms?

People live with the society they find themselves in. Just as not all Afghan men are personally responsible for the Taliban's cruelty to women, those who use those laws to beat and mistreat their wives are responsible for their actions, not for the law itself.

The people responsible are those who commit the acts. And those who knowingly cover up for them. I agree that some parts of society were complicit. That doesn't remove one iota of the church's guilt - which is what the Archbishop is trying to do - and nor does it make everyone equally responsible. That's a cop out.

jameorahiely

volchitsa wrote: »

This "it's all our fault" stain on society thing is really getting on my wick.

People didn't "all know" that babies' bodies were being dumped in unconsecrated ground, and I don't believe everyone knew anything like the extent of the cruelty either. Why else would they have had to put on a different face when inspectors came around for the pre-announced visits? Because it wasnt acceptable and they knew it.

Some people in society chose to ignore it and probably called anyone trying to brimg attention to it liars.

volchitsa

jameorahiely wrote: »

Some people in society chose to ignore it and probably called anyone trying to brimg attention to it liars.

How exactly does that justify religious people, self-styled teachers of morality to the rest of the people, committing such horrendous and probably illegal acts?

jameorahiely

volchitsa wrote: »

How exactly does that justify religious people, self-styled teachers of morality to the rest of the people, committing such horrendous and probably illegal acts?

Where did I justify it?

Brainwashing is a hell of a thing.

volchitsa

jameorahiely wrote: »

Where did I justify it?

Well then it's not relevant, open a thread about how horrible ordinary people were to the babies in Tuam and discuss it there.

Here we're talking about illegal burials, which "society" certainly did not condone. And if "some people" called others liars for suggesting that the nuns would do such a thing, that was presumably because they couldn't imagine that it was even possible.

Blaming them for according the nuns too much credit back then is pretty unfair IMO. You can blame those who continued to do so after 2014 though - there was plenty of evidence by then about just how much evil the Catholic Church had committed. But not in the 50s, the nuns themselves and their accomplices kept it well hidden.

Brainwashing is a hell of a thing.

Oh the irony.

MintyMagnum

Mr.Wemmick wrote: »

I did read them and yes, I agree, they were very hard going. Endemic and systemic abuse/neglect proven again and again in homes and institutions all over the country.



This is certainly consistent from what I was told about my grand-aunt who had a baby outside of marriage. Who, when visited by her mother/sisters, was clearly terrified of the Nun standing behind her and never spoke freely to her family. On each visit she got thinner and sicker, until she died. Like prison, only worse.. more like a c. camp. From the account I have been told it sure sounds like my grandaunt was beaten, traumatized and starved to death.

I also remember reading in the Murphy/Ryan report the rooms were freezing and often children didn't have enough bedclothes or warm clothes or warm food in winter exacerbating illness or infection given their little bodies no immunity or strength to fight. Those poor unloved babies - heartbreaking!

They were loved, they just weren't allowed to be loved or cared for or kept, in many instances. I heard a man on Liveline the other day tell of meeting his birth mother & she said the day after She gave birth to him in the convent she went to see him & a nun stopped her saying he was gone, no longer there. They actually spent the next year under the same roof but didn't know it. She left the home after a year, while he was kept there for a few years more before being 'boarded out' to a farming family. He was treated simply as slave labour & was only sent to school on rainy days, ie instead of working.

jameorahiely

volchitsa wrote: »

Well then it's not relevant, open a thread about how horrible ordinary people were to the babies in Tuam and discuss it there.

Here we're talking about illegal burials, which "society" certainly did not condone. And if "some people" called others liars for suggesting that the nuns would do such a thing, that was presumably because they couldn't imagine that it was even possible.

Blaming them for according the nuns too much credit back then is pretty unfair IMO. You can blame those who continued to do so after 2014 though - there was plenty of evidence by then about just how much evil the Catholic Church had committed. But not in the 50s, the nuns themselves and their accomplices kept it well hidden.



Oh the irony.

Societies views and complicity in sending their daughthers to these homes is not relevant you reckon? I would disagree and don't see the reason for another thread on the same topic?


Oh, my irony meter exploded when I see some posters lamenting over illegal burials 50 years, yet the same people run to defend an organisation who in 2016 disposed of bodies by carting them around in buckets. As I said , brainwashing is a hell of a thing.

volchitsa

jameorahiely wrote: »

Societies views and complicity in sending their daughthers to these homes is not relevant you reckon? I would disagree and don't see the reason for another thread on the same topic?

"Society" didn't all send their daughters there, afaiaa nobody in my family was ever sent to one of those places. And yes, some had children "out of wedlock".

And of those who did, do you really think they knew the babies were going to be ill treated and dumped in illegal graves when dead? Or do you think that by signing them over to the nuns they had no right to expect them to be kindly treated? I wouldn't agree with that at all.

Oh, my irony meter exploded when I see some posters lamenting over illegal burials 50 years, yet the same people run to defend an organisation who in 2016 disposed of bodies by carting them around in buckets. As I said , brainwashing is a hell of a thing.

This is actually quite funny now. Talk about off topic. But do keep going - by continuing to make that link you are helping the pro choice cause enormously.

The Rape of Lucretia

volchitsa wrote: »

This "it's all our fault" stain on society thing is really getting on my wick.

People didn't "all know" that babies' bodies were being dumped in unconsecrated ground, and I don't believe everyone knew anything like the extent of the cruelty either. Why else would they have had to put on a different face when inspectors came around for the pre-announced visits? Because it wasnt acceptable and they knew it.

It isnt really a case of fault or blame, rather of thats just the way it was. And thank God it is better now. A country as a while took a certain course as a country, and no individual or institution was out of step with what the country set as an appropriate standard and policy.
It isnt 'everyone is to blame', it 'no one is to blame'.