NY Times: The lost children of Tuam

Bambi985

I read this NY Times article about the Tuam babies scandal yesterday and bawled my eyes out. I read a fair bit about it when it originally broke, but I can't stop thinking about it after reading this and the incredible, relentless work that Catherine Corless did of her own accord to unveil all of the horrific details of what actually went on in that Bon Secours mother and baby home. And what an incredible debt we all owe her.

Imagine if she just...hadn't? What really stood out for me was that she had been investigating the home for years before it came to national prominence, and had published an essay about it in an historical journal, and what was the reaction?
“No one cared. And that’s my driving force all the time: No one cared.”

I know it's not your standard AH post of a Sunday evening, but I'd suggest if you're going to read something this or next week, let this be it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/28/world/europe/tuam-ireland-babies-children.html

jimbobalob309

read that this afternoon, terrific piece of writing.

branie2

Very well written, yet sad at the same time.

Carry

A brilliant piece of journalism. Thanks for the link.

Tell me how

From article wrote:

She balls up an empty candy wrapper and presents it to a home baby as if it still contains a sweet, then watches as the little girl’s anticipation melts to sad confusion

Is there any other species with the capacity to inflict such pain on its fellow beings in this way? For no material gain?

This sentence is in no way the most horrific element of the article but for some reason I found it very upsetting. To think of the life that that misfortunate child had lived and to go from the elation of thinking they were receiving a treat to the realisation that they were being laughed at, within a few seconds, must have been so upsetting.

Again, there are so much more serious elements to the article, I don't know why this struck me as it did. I'm not thinking about the perpetrator of the act, who was a child herself, but the experience of the girl on the receiving end. It was a joke in playgrounds even as I went to school, but generally, kids on the receiving end had their own sweets or went home, and if they told their mother, probably got one. This poor child didn't have that place of comfort when they left school and that is very sad.



It is a stunning article and the accompanying imagery helps make it so. The short video before the final section showing the walled garden is chilling. The older man standing by the entrance to the garden, possibly a relative or someone else with a connection to the home and on the left of the screen, 3 children playing happily in a garden just a few yards away, oblivious to the hardship experienced in that place.

Catherine Corless deserves tremendous recognition for the respect she afforded the 796 babies and their mothers in Tuam and for anyone who was treated in this way.
I'm quite sure she does not want any adulation or material reward, maybe if people treated each other with more respect and dignity as a result of hearing of Catherines work, it would be the best reward for her.

Mars Bar

I read it yesterday morning and she'd a few tears. It's so sad and disgusting what happened. To think of those kids being so segregated and miserable.

It also made me homesick. I'm from Tuam but living abroad.

I was there - last year for a remembrance service. What struck me as an extreme juxtaposition is that there's a playground mere feet away from the erected wooden fence, which hides where the babies were buried, in which children played happily.

Unless it's changed, something that also struck me was that it was just a fence. Just a regular ramshackle fence that stood between us and where 800+ babies were buried.

jimbobalob309

Tell me how wrote: »

Is there any other species with the capacity to inflict such pain on its fellow beings in this way? For no material gain?

This sentence is in no way the most horrific element of the article but for some reason I found it very upsetting. To think of the life that that misfortunate child had lived and to go from the elation of thinking they were receiving a treat to the realisation that they were being laughed at, within a few seconds, must have been so upsetting.

totally agree. its like this dogged drive that catherine had to get to the root of what went on was in no small part due to her own childhood and hte incredible guilt she felt being so close to this horror and the casual cruelty the whole of society inflicted on them. its very obvious that she feels guilt to this day for how she treated these kids despite being an innocent kid and knowing no better at the time
what hit me the most about the article was the tendency to dismiss or explain away her horrific findings by locals and by the community before this story went global. 'famine grounds" blah blah blah. It speaks to this societal thing where we pulled down the blinds instead of confronting the reality head on and got on with our days. I know it's a lot more complex than that and it was a very different ireland, but its scary to think that catherines original essay could have gathered dust in a journal in a local library had it not been picked up by a national newspaper

reminds me of that saying - 'the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing'

flaneur

It is chilling and disgusting that it happened in what was supposed to be, in all that it claimed to be and said, a republic, a state that had shaken off the shackles of imperialism, monarchy, establishment and class. Yet it allowed the most extreme form of established religion and class based discrimination to coexist with it, completely unchallenged.

Ireland needs to figure out what being a republic is supposed to be. Maybe we are finally starting to get there but the 20th century Ireland was more of a browbeaten, class obsessed, de facto theocracy that somehow operated using the structures and framework of a democracy and a republic.

It was a sad and shameful period of our history where our ideals were cast aside in favour of religious dogma and paranoia about respectability.

Really this was the ultimate corruption of both Irish aspirations for a modern, rights and values based state and also for the Catholic and Christian values these religious institutions claimed to be upholding.

Lies, hypocrisy and betrayal!

Hector Savage

A sensitive child, familiar with the sting of playground taunts, Catherine nevertheless decides to repeat a prank she saw a classmate pull on one of these children. She balls up an empty candy wrapper and presents it to a home baby as if it still contains a sweet, then watches as the little girl’s anticipation melts to sad confusion.

Everyone laughs, nearly. This moment will stay with Catherine forever.

My God, this has me welling up and it's only near the start ... it'll be tough to continue reading this ... but I feel I must.

Dr Crayfish

How can people still associate themselves with the church after all this? It wasn't a few bad eggs abuse was endemic.

Tell me how

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

How can people still associate themselves with the church after all this? It wasn't a few bad eggs abuse was endemic.

I think it is a broader consideration than just the church.

From Article wrote:

But laying the blame entirely on the church or the state seemed too simple — perhaps even too convenient. After all, many of these abandoned children had fathers and grandparents and aunts and uncles.

The bitter truth was that the mother and baby homes mirrored the Mother Ireland of the time.

I am no excusing the evils perpetrated by members of religious organisations but I wonder that if those organisations had not been in place, would society have proven to set a better example?

Akrasia

Very well written piece and very moving

The Bon Secures order have been caught lying throughout this whole process and it's an absolute disgrace the way they continue to evade responsibility for their crimes.

Akrasia

Tell me how wrote: »

I think it is a broader consideration than just the church.



I am no excusing the evils perpetrated by members of religious organisations but I wonder that if those organisations had not been in place, would society have proven to set a better example?

The country was run by the Catholic church. They controlled our schools, our hospitals, our government, our laws and customs and our national sporting institutions.

It's no coincidence that the further we move away from 'traditional catholic values' the less we tolerate the shocking treatment of women, gay people and children from 'illegitimate' pregnancies.

21st century Ireland still has to wake up to how we abuse people in the mental health services and direct provision asylum seekers, this will be our generations shame if we don't do something to change our attitudes and behaviour.

BillyBobBS

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

How can people still associate themselves with the church after all this? It wasn't a few bad eggs abuse was endemic.

I still refuse to set foot inside a church to this day. Iv'e missed weddings, funerals, communions etc.. but i don't care. I was taken away from my own mother as a baby because of the views of the Catholic church on single mothers and put up for adoption. I'm one if the lucky ones as my mother and father are brilliant and showed me nothing but love and showered me with attention but we all know what happened to the less fortunate and it's sickening.

As far as i'm concerned the church is a deeply evil backward organisation that has no place in a civilised society. If somebody was an active member of the KKK they'd be rightly outcast by us all but for me the sins of the church are on a par with scumbags like that and yet people are happy to attend mass every Sunday and throw money in a basket to keep the organisation up and running.

We are talking child abuse and murder here on an industrial scale and yet still to this day people refuse to face up to it and question the church's role.

The mind boggles tbh.

Dr Crayfish

Well I don't think you can solely blamed the church because the people were allowing this to happen too. Although I would say it was the church who had the people look down on these unfortunates in the first place.

flaneur

What I still find incredible is that despite all of this and all of the other horrors that we have uncovered, there are still people who doggedly defend the church and see no wrong in this.

I understand people have religious beliefs but you’re talking about an organisation that rode roughshod over what those beliefs are supposed to be and just went on a mad, corrupt power trip.

I’m not religious but I think Catholics who are really need to be demanding change and transparency much more aggressively than they are.

It’s that very blind passivity that facilitated these horrors in the first place. You have to hold the organisation to account.

All I see is hand wringing.

I mean how many times does this story need to repeat before more people say enough is enough?

Dr Crayfish

I don't see why people can't worship God in their own way, if that's what they are into, without having to involve the Catholic church

Hotblack Desiato

What's truly sickening is that the Bon Secours now control a private healthcare empire worth billions built on the backs of their exploitation of these innocent, powerless, women and children - and they won't even pay a cent in restitution.

flaneur

Well all of these religious organisations were great at having two tiers and two faces.

If you were middle class, you went to the fee paying school (small barrier fee to keep out the plebs, not the full economic fee) and you had VHI so went to the private hospital.

You met lovely nuns, priests and religious who were absolutely charming.

Meanwhile, if you’d no money or, worse still if you did something to offend the church like have a baby outside marriage, you saw the other face - the brutal, uncaring one that those with power and influence never had to experience.

Basically, they preserved and enhanced the Victorian and Edwardian class system and added an extra dose of brutality to it.

It’s also why I think to this day, we can’t solve healthcare problems here because the people who are the movers, the shakers and those with influence and ability to yell louder don’t use the public system. If a continental public system were failing this badly, it would be getting attacked by the talking heads and the business people, the lawyers, the engineers and so on. However, in Ireland if you’ve a middle class income you aren’t beholden to the public system so you don’t care. The issues never become as politically serious, so nothing changes.

I think that problem stems from the religious running hospitals and an on going ideology that persists that public healthcare is charity and not a public service and it’s good enough for you!

Likewise, we’ve schools segregated by religion and gender which has lead to a vast array of small, crappy schools with huge administrative overheads - there’s a principal and a full management structure, building and maintenance overheads for every flavour of religious school that has flourished.

The result is resources are spread thin. We’ve schools without adequate services - libraries, IT, science, art, psychological support services etc etc and it also wastes money in urban areas on endless duplication that could be going into provision of better services in remote areas too.

You know in the 1950s the state actually let the Legion of Mary basically run the probation service!?

There’s a lot of legacy from that days when the church de facto ran Ireland, using OUR money and OUR resources.

We had the Costello coming out with this as Taoiseach:

“I, as a Catholic, obey my church authorities and will continue to do so . . . There will be no flouting of the authority of the bishops in the matter of Catholic social or moral teaching.” (Dail debate)

““On the occasion of our assumption of office and of the first Cabinet meeting, my colleagues and myself desire to repose at the feet of your Holiness the assurance of our filial and of our devotion to your August Person, as well as our firm resolve to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ, and to strive for the attainment of the social order in Ireland based on Christian principles.” (Chairing his first cabinet meeting).

And say what you like about FG and Enda, but he was one of the first if not the first Taoiseach to really take an an actual modern, progressive and genuinely republican stance on this:

“My book is the Constitution . . . That’s the people’s book and we live in a republic and I have a duty and responsibility, as head of government, to legislate in respect of what the people’s wishes are”.

And when someone brought up excommunication he said “I have my own way of speaking to my God.”

Finally, someone in that office who had the balls to say that! I may disagree with FG on many aspects of economic policy at the moment and I’m a lot more left leaning, but it was the first time I found myself actually feeling a Taoiseach understood the job description and I respect him for that.

I just feel if we want to honor the legacy of those people who suffered under our 20th century regime, we need to make this republic a genuine one. It means a hell of a lot more than “not a monarchy” or “not British”.

Maybe 100+ years after the proclamation, we might finally start to live up to it!

Nettle Soup

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

How can people still associate themselves with the church after all this? It wasn't a few bad eggs abuse was endemic.

I agree. I don't understand how people darken the doors of Catholic churches these days. The organisation makes me ill. People that still fund it today are complicit in my mind because the Roman church are still covering up. They still withhold a lot of information.

I don't think people understand how hard Catherine Corless worked to get this story told. She was put under considerable pressure to shut up and leave history in the septic tank. Great lady.

Dr Crayfish

She's a hero. Whatever our highest honour is, she deserves it. Or a ward named after her in the new children's hospital that'll show the church!

bodhrandude

flaneur wrote: »

What I still find incredible is that despite all of this and all of the other horrors that we have uncovered, there are still people who doggedly defend the church and see no wrong in this.

I understand people have religious beliefs but you’re talking about an organisation that rode roughshod over what those beliefs are supposed to be and just went on a mad, corrupt power trip.

I’m not religious but I think Catholics who are really need to be demanding change and transparency much more aggressively than they are.

It’s that very blind passivity that facilitated these horrors in the first place. You have to hold the organisation to account.

All I see is hand wringing.

I mean how many times does this story need to repeat before more people say enough is enough?

Yep I agree, one just needs to look at our political history, of note: Noel Browne Versus Bishop McQuaid on the Mother and Child Scheme.

Hector Savage

Standing ovation for Catherine Corless.

Incredible woman.

Carry

She did receive a Human Rights Award. Rightly so.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/galway-historian-catherine-corless-receives-human-rights-award-1.3270465

branie2

I noticed that comments for the video were disabled

flaneur

branie2 wrote: »

I noticed that comments for the video were disabled

That's standard practice as they can't moderate them easily and they don't necessarily want an RTÉ video with a pile of spam and ranting under it. They only intended that YouTube host the video.

Nekarsulm

Any response to the NY Times article from Terry Prone yet?

I wonder if Anton Savage will take their shilling now he is involved with the business?

Working class heroes

Could do worse than naming the children's hospital after her...

Galwayguy35

I read the article yesterday.

Back then the church basically told the Government what to do and with around 90% of the population weekly Mass goers who hung on every word that came out of the mouths of priests and nuns we went from being ruled by the Brits to being ruled by the church.

I'd be a christian myself but there's no defending the cover up that went on in this country for decades and the stalling that went on releasing information about abuse and compensation for victims.

Master of the Omniverse

BillyBobBS wrote: »

I still refuse to set foot inside a church to this day. Iv'e missed weddings, funerals, communions etc.. but i don't care. I was taken away from my own mother as a baby because of the views of the Catholic church on single mothers and put up for adoption. I'm one if the lucky ones as my mother and father are brilliant and showed me nothing but love and showered me with attention but we all know what happened to the less fortunate and it's sickening.

As far as i'm concerned the church is a deeply evil backward organisation that has no place in a civilised society. If somebody was an active member of the KKK they'd be rightly outcast by us all but for me the sins of the church are on a par with scumbags like that and yet people are happy to attend mass every Sunday and throw money in a basket to keep the organisation up and running.

We are talking child abuse and murder here on an industrial scale and yet still to this day people refuse to face up to it and question the church's role.

The mind boggles tbh.

Isnt the report due out soon?

Fizzlesque

Although I found it difficult to read that article, I felt compelled to read it to the end. During my reading, I oscillated between horror at what could have been and enormous relief that in the late eighties, when I was a pregnant unmarried mother-to-be, the church didn't have quite the same grip it heartlessly and callously enjoyed once upon a time. It was still there, but not quite so vice-like.

It's 28 years since I agreed to have my child adopted and while I wasn't forced to make that choice, it wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to keep my baby but my father painted such a bleak picture of how our lives would unfold, I was terrified at the thought of inflicting such an awful 'fait accompli' on my child.

I bowed to the pressure and agreed to let another woman become my child's mother. When I read this New York Times article, it brought back a lot of half forgotten memories and while they make my heart feel heavy, they also bring some relief and a lot of gratitude. The relief comes from remembering that the times back then were very different to how they are now, and the guilt I've allowed build up, like years of debris in an uncleaned gutter, should be stopped in its tracks because I'm using my today-mind to view a years-ago decision. The gratitude probably needs no explanation - mostly that I wasn't sent to a mother and baby home to atone for my "sin" and eventually relinquish my baby, never to hear of her again.

My heart bleeds for the women that were sent to these places, who lost their babies either through death or adoption. To never be able to speak of their loss, to share their pain or to try ease some of their heartache. They punished the grieving and made light of their pain.

I have a semi-open adoption. I know where my child is. I have contact of sorts. I have hope she will come back to me some day. I can talk (and do, freely and often) about my emotions and my loss, but these women were silenced and shamed. Although it is 28 years since I said goodbye to my child, just yesterday I cried like a wounded animal, and wailed to the earless air around me asking it to send a message to her that I miss her and desperately want to see her again. Today, as I read that article, all I could think of was, lucky me, to have at least the chance of reunion. Lucky me to be allowed to express my love and my pain. Lucky me to know my child had a good childhood, was cared for, hugged, loved and always knew laughter, happiness and acceptance.

Those children and those women were treated barbarically. Made out to be filth when the truth was the filth was the church and those who put its obnoxious teachings into practice.

I feel anger when I read that article. Anger for myself, even though I got off lightly. Anger for those that suffered with no respite and no recourse. But, anger is no good and I've cried enough over the last 28 years to drown us all so I will dry my eyes and switch my attention to feeling grateful that among us are wonderful women like Catherine Corless whose tireless insistence on getting to the bottom of this story has brought this terrible truth into the light.

All My Stars Aligned

As an adopted child of the early 70's I have always tried to avoid articles such as these. Upon reading I was left with a very real appreciation of how luck I was not to have ended up in a place such as the Tuam Home. My heart breaks for those not as fortunate as myself.

Catherine Corless deserves to be recognised by the Irish people for seeking the truth for those deprived of a voice of their own.

The short video is one of the most moving pieces of film that I have ever watched.

Perhaps this evening you might light a candle and remember those who suffered at the hands of the RCC, both mothers and babies.

Thank you OP for posting this.

leahyl

Working class heroes wrote: »

Could do worse than naming the children's hospital after her...

Brilliant idea

captbarnacles

I looked up the standing ovation she got on the late late show after reading it even tho it is only a tiny but if the recognition she deserves.

Bambi985

Why isn't that septic tank being treated as a crime scene, if the home was open as late as the 90s and some of the perpetrators may still be alive?

None of these crimes are surprising anymore. We've had the Ryan report, the Murphy report, the McAleese report and now this upcoming report by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission - and it's the same bloody rigmarole every time. The church is "shocked" (but doesn't apologise), the State is "saddened", a commission is deployed to investigate (over years), meanwhile the perpetrators get off scot-free just because they happen to wear religious garments and say mass a few times a week. Why?

Catherine Corless is an embodiment of what happens when you keep asking "why" - you face immense intimidation and scrutiny from the church, from the community, from politicians and from fuddy duddy rent-a-gobs like Terry Prone who will protect their own interests and biases at any cost. We don't like change. We don't like to challenge the beliefs and the traditions we've been raised on. But for the love of fcuking christ how many more "reports" do we need to face before deciding that enough is enough and someone has to pay the price for these heinous crimes against the most vulnerable members of society?

I don't give a sh1t if they're 80 now. Lock them up and let the Catholic Church reform itself to prove it has a rightful place in the 21st century.

Hotblack Desiato

The Tuam home closed in 1961.

I don't hold out any hope of anyone still alive being held accountable, unfortunately.

A person close to me was born in the 50s, one of a large family in a small house in a poor area. His mother died when he was young. His father remarried. For obvious reasons, the children didn't really bond with their stepmother.

And then his father died. Leaving a stepmother with a large young family...which was not hers. And she worked a number of jobs to put food on their table, ensure they went to school, got jobs.

And it's only in recent years he fully understood why she did it. Because if she didn't...and there was no obligation on her to care for them...they would have gone into State care, they would have been split up and fostered out.

It's one of the most selfless acts I've heard. She sacrificed her life for a family that were not hers. And to spare relative strangers the possibility of ending up abandoned to the care of the State, as those poor children at Tuam and other places were.

Cookie_Monster

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The Tuam home closed in 1961.

I don't hold out any hope of anyone still alive being held accountable, unfortunately.

The Catholic Church as an organisation surely can be held at least partly responsible?

EPAndlee

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

The Catholic Church as an organisation surely can be held at least partly responsible?

They should be at least made to answer questions over this. After all the pain,hurt and trauma the Catholic church has put people of this country through over the years they can't be allowed to just cover things up and get away with it. Who's know what else they've covered up

lazygal

I honestly cannot understand how parents of my generation willingly hand their children over for baptisms, communion and confirmation.
It isn't always to get into schools. Most schools do take most children. It is always spoken about as though they've no choice because the grannies will be upset and because they don't want their children being left out.
If people still use the church for getting married while giving out about Tuam and saying they're only doing it to keep the other half happy nothing will change.
Why would any religious order change. So many willingly choose to give them money and power, with all the excuses they tell themselves and each other. Of course nothing will change. We know the Catholic Church abused and killed children but most parents still indoctrinate their children.

Hotblack Desiato

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

The Catholic Church as an organisation surely can be held at least partly responsible?

In Ireland that is just not going to happen. They literally can get away with murder.

lazygal

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

In Ireland that is just not going to happen. They literally can get away with murder.

We hand billions to the Catholic Church every year, millions of which it uses to evangelise to children.
Ireland has a totally dysfunctional relationship with the Catholic Church.

Dr Crayfish

Dr Crayfish wrote: »

Well I don't think you can solely blamed the church because the people were allowing this to happen too. Although I would say it was the church who had the people look down on these unfortunates in the first place.

There was a really moving report on RTÉ Radio 1 about 5 years ago and the journalist (Cian McCormack?) described how the local doctor, local solicitor, local garda and local nurse all conspired to help the RCC religious organisation involved to put the name of American adoptive parents on a child's birthcert and omit all mention of the child's real mother. Then the child was sold for a handsome profit by the named organisation.

There's something extraordinarily evil about knowingly omitting a child's real birth parents and denying them rights to know their own people and their people's history and place in the world.

SEPT 23 1989

There was a story on the radio last week about another place where a couple of nine year old girls were left by the nuns to tend to a baby who was coughing itself to death no doctor called and the child died after a few days as they watched on helpless

Worse than any horror film

lazygal

A HSE social worker recently organised an "exorcism" for a child. Most health services continue to be delivered through Catholic charitable bodies using 100% state funding. Not much has changed.

Ipso

lazygal wrote: »

We hand billions to the Catholic Church every year, millions of which it uses to evangelise to children.
Ireland has a totally dysfunctional relationship with the Catholic Church.

It's a two way relationship, people shouldn't deflect too much blame away from society.

mahamageehad

I read this piece earlier, it's heartbreaking. I also came across this blog detailing some of the Bessborough questions, that's the next bombshell we should be expecting by the looks of it. I mean, I'm not surprised that Tuam wasn't an isolated incident but I am surprised that there seems to be a certain reluctance in Ireland to investigate these places. The abuse that Ms. Corless put up and the resistance that she met with is astonishing.

lazygal

Ipso wrote: »

It's a two way relationship, people shouldn't deflect too much blame away from society.

As I said parents still actively choose to hand their children over to this church for sacraments. They've obviously no problem with the fact the church has abused and killed generation after generation.

Nettle Soup

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

I read the article yesterday.

Back then the church basically told the Government what to do and with around 90% of the population weekly Mass goers who hung on every word that came out of the mouths of priests and nuns we went from being ruled by the Brits to being ruled by the church.

I'd be a christian myself but there's no defending the cover up that went on in this country for decades and the stalling that went on releasing information about abuse and compensation for victims.

This is still happening today.

lazygal

mahamageehad wrote: »

I read this piece earlier, it's heartbreaking. I also came across this blog detailing some of the Bessborough questions, that's the next bombshell we should be expecting by the looks of it. I mean, I'm not surprised that Tuam wasn't an isolated incident but I am surprised that there seems to be a certain reluctance in Ireland to investigate these places. The abuse that Ms. Corless put up and the resistance that she met with is astonishing.

Not astonishing at all. People don't like having to confront uncomfortable truths. They'd prefer not to have to ask themselves why they support a church that's done so much harm.