Death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy of Listowel, 1946

Surprised there hasn't been a single thread about this yet. On RTÉ Radio 1's superb Documentary on One - one of the few RTÉ programmes worth paying the licence fee for - earlier today they delved into the death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy of Listowel in February 1946. The programme really should have come with a health warning:

RTÉ Documentary on One: Death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy, February 1946

If you're too busy to listen to it, here's a synopsis of sorts:

One of ten children, Peggy McCarthy worked as a domestic servant for local farming families. At 25, in the summer of 1945, she became pregnant following a local dance (as an old man recounts the dances, 'and this field out here is the courting field, and they say it's responsible for many a man getting the boat for Holyhead in the morning'). Her boyfriend, also from north Kerry, went to England for work ostensibly in order to provide for her but never returned. As was the norm.

On 10 February 1946 Peggy McCarthy went into labour at her home in the outskirts of Listowel, with her mother and a local midwife beside her. However, when she needed extra medical help she had to go to Listowel hospital. A local taxi driver named John Guerin brought her there where, despite pleas from Guerin that her life was in serious danger, she was refused admittance because she conceived a child out of wedlock. Sweet Christ almighty. Let that one sink in about that Christian god and that Christian charity. Our very own Papist Taliban, and they had the state's finances and power behind them. 'The person who refused her admittance then was a nun employed by Kerry County Council who looked after the medical matters in Kerry. The only rule, the only rule - and she was following regulations - was that she couldn't accept the mother because she was an unmarried mother whereas she could accept any other mother who was married.'

In a rapidly deteriorating condition, Peggy and John Guerin were told to go to Tralee, some 27km away by road in 1946. When they finally arrived in St Catherine's hospital in Tralee, and now at death's door, another nun met them and said under no account could they allow her admittance to the hospital. Peggy was told then to go to 'the Union' hospital in Killarney, a further 34km away, 'which was considered to be a more suitable place for her equals'. A historian comes on to explain three things:

1) all hospitals were funded by the Irish state in the form of Kerry County Council;

2) the hospitals were managed by the RCC in alliance with KCC;

3) because an unmarried mother was seen as 'contaminated' it would be unforgivable in the Ireland of 1946 to allow her inside the door of 'respectable' hospitals no matter what the situation was, and consequently she must go to the designated hospital for "fallen" women in Killarney. No debate. No exceptions.

Peggy appears to have made it to Killarney, where she gave birth to a baby girl named Breda, but Peggy herself died shortly after. So the taxi driver, John Guerin, had one final journey back to Listowel - with Peggy's coffin on a bed of straw on the top of his car. When he arrived back to Peggy's local Catholic Church the gates were not merely closed, but locked. They went to the chapel in the local convent, and the same thing. It transpired that the local RCC priest, 66-year-old Canon Patrick Brennan, had decided she could not be given a Christian mass in any of the parish's churches, or a Christian burial in consecrated ground. As the narrator puts the consequences of this, 'In 1946 this was tantamount to locking the gates to heaven to the young mother.'

A crowd had been gathered to pay their respects and as the taxi remained at the locked gate with the girl's body in the coffin on the roof, John Guerin, the taxi driver, got incensed, broke down the gate and managed to get many of the locals to stand alongside him against the ignorant Roman Catholic mullah - an extremely rare event in 1940s Ireland. The priest refused outright to have such a person in his church, so suggested she go to the chapel connected to the Listowel hospital that had refused her first. There, she got a wake but not a funeral mass. She was then. finally, given a Christian burial in an isolated corner of St Michael's cemetery in Listowel.

Now, an old man is saying that Peggy McCarthy's case was extremely unusual because unlike so many others she had people who made a stand for her and risked eternal damnation and whatever other bollocksology was in it. He instances a cowhand who slept not in a house but in a barn and couldn't take life anymore so took his own life in the local river, and the RCC refused outright to give him either a Christian mass or burial because he had committed something called a "mortal sin" by taking his own life.

The historian points out that the people who rose up against the RCC in 1946 were not the middle class in Listowel but rather the same social class as the McCarthys - the small farmers and poorer families in the area. And the RCC and the Irish state weren't finished with pushing the McCarthy family about yet. Peggy's child, Breda, had been born with a serious intellectual difficulty and was raised by Peggy's parents as their own child. 18 years after Peggy died, Peggy's mother died in 1964. A RCC priest knocked on the door and the upshot was that Breda was brought to a Magdalene laundry in Limerick to be "looked after" (to work). She was subsequently transferred to a variety of laundries in Dublin where she was kept to work until the 1990s. As of 2018 she is now in care.

---

Words fail me on what completely savage bastards Irish conservatism produced in 1946. And any of us who have read Máiréad Ní Ghráda's very brave and controversial play An Triail (1964) know this was far from an occasional event. Rather, what happened Peggy McCarthy happened in almost every parish in Ireland to countless "fallen women" (invariably from poorer families) while the lads got the boat never to return again. This sort of societal impulse to control and contain "radical"/"alternative"/"dissenting" views or behaviours doesn't just disappear; rather, the mob tends to find new targets, new scapegoats. Who are the pariahs of Irish society in 2018, and who are the thugs and bullies of Irish society in 2018? Or will we only be able to answer that in 70 years time?

orourkeda1977

Is that you bull?

BBFAN

I listened to it today on my drive and bawled my eyes out.

Tragic.

You know what struck me the most? That her daughter ended up living a life in an institution and still lives in one today. And she entered that in the 60's?


So between 1946 and 1966 nothing really changed?


It's so sad how long Irish society took to get out from the shackles of the Catholic church.


I will never ever forget this documentary.

BBFAN

Anyone who hasn't heard it, please listen.

It will really make you reconsider your take on life.

Marley and Marley

People blame the Catholic Church for everything that was wrong in Ireland back in those days but the truth is without the borderline cruelty of a lot of Irish citizens in the way they treated people the catholic church wouldn't have been able to do anything.

People seem to forget the church were not armed and if people actually just stood up to them and not tolerated their inhumane bull**** they wouldn't have had any power.People allowed the church to have the power they had because they just didn't stand up to them when it wouldn't have been that difficult a thing to do.

The church only had power and influence in ireland because irish people allowed them to have power and influence but the church is a really convenient whipping boy for all of the country's problems for so long because people just don't want to accept that their parents grandparents etc were complicit in allowing the church to have the negative influence on society that they had.

By the way I'm not saying the church weren't to blame just that they weren't solely to blame.

BBFAN

Marley and Marley wrote: »

People blame the Catholic Church for everything that was wrong in Ireland back in those days but the truth is without the borderline cruelty of a lot of Irish citizens in the way they treated people the catholic church wouldn't have been able to do anything.

People seem to forget the church were not armed and if people actually just stood up to them and not tolerated their inhumane bull**** they wouldn't have had any power.People allowed the church to have the power they had because they just didn't stand up to them when it wouldn't have been that difficult a thing to do.

The church only had power and influence in ireland because irish people allowed them to have power and influence but the church is a really convenient whipping boy for all of the country's problems for so long because people just don't want to accept that their parents grandparents etc were complicit in allowing the church to have the negative influence on society that they had.

Did you listen to the documentary?

She died because of the Catholic Church? And it was ordinary PEOPLE who stood up to them.

Listen and then restate all your bull****.

BBFAN

Marley and Marley wrote: »

People blame the Catholic Church for everything that was wrong in Ireland back in those days but the truth is without the borderline cruelty of a lot of Irish citizens in the way they treated people the catholic church wouldn't have been able to do anything.

People seem to forget the church were not armed and if people actually just stood up to them and not tolerated their inhumane bull**** they wouldn't have had any power.People allowed the church to have the power they had because they just didn't stand up to them when it wouldn't have been that difficult a thing to do.

The church only had power and influence in ireland because irish people allowed them to have power and influence but the church is a really convenient whipping boy for all of the country's problems for so long because people just don't want to accept that their parents grandparents etc were complicit in allowing the church to have the negative influence on society that they had.

By the way I'm not saying the church weren't to blame just that they weren't solely to blame.

Seriously, I am fuming that you posted this crap without even listening.

Gob****e.

Mod-Banned

Marley and Marley

BBFAN wrote: »

Did you listen to the documentary?

She died because of the Catholic Church? And it was ordinary PEOPLE who stood up to them.

Listen and then restate all your bull****.

The church had such power in ireland because continually the people of this county voted for politicians who allowed them the power because the media didn't challenge them enough, because the public didn't challenge them etc etc, continually these sorts of things happened yet it took until the 1990's before the church's influence was removed from the country.Stuff like this happened constantly and yet it took far too long for the churches power to be taken away from them.

BBFAN

Marley and Marley wrote: »

The church had such power in ireland because continually the people of this county voted for politicians who allowed them the power because the media didn't challenge them enough, because the public didn't challenge them etc etc, continually these sorts of things happened yet it took until the 1990's before the church's influence was removed from the country.Stuff like this happened constantly and yet it took far too long for the churches power to be taken away from them.

Did you listen to the documentary?

Mrs OBumble

BBFAN wrote: »

Did you listen to the documentary?

She died because of the Catholic Church? And it was ordinary PEOPLE who stood up to them.

Listen and then restate all your bull****.

No, she died because a useless lump of a lad knocked her up, and then fúcked off to England instead of marrying her.

listermint

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

No, she died because a useless lump of a lad knocked her up, and then fúcked off to England instead of marrying her.

Well that's not true.

She literally died because she was refused care at several hospitals by nuns.

Dirty disgusting people who are probably rotting in hell for their sins rather than some devine absolution they thought they'd get.


Sure the fella should have looked after her but he didn't kill her


Those that choose to protect that sort of nonsense need to really take a look at themselves and their pretend Christianity.

And I do say pretend

Happy4all

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

No, she died because a useless lump of a lad knocked her up, and then fúcked off to England instead of marrying her.

What a sad person you are.

QuintusFabius

The RCC are a disgusting organisation, my mother grew up in 1950s Limerick and even when she was a child she knew it was rotten.
RCC priests were all angry thin lipped men that were just pure evil - rotten org.

Marley and Marley

BBFAN wrote: »

Did you listen to the documentary?

She died because of the Catholic Church? And it was ordinary PEOPLE who stood up to them.

Listen and then restate all your bull****.

Note that one of the contributors pointed out that people still bowed down for the priest in Listowel in the 1950's after the incident.Why the **** would you do that having known what the church did in your own town to a young woman.

People knew that this sort of horrible stuff went on all over the country and yet the still went back to mass, they still went along with the churches teachings, still voted for politicians who allowed the church to exert their corrosive influence on the country.

Again I state the church were wrong but so many people allowed them to do stuff that was wrong, The hospitals were funded by the state and yet the allowed these rules to be enforced by the church who were running them.

The public sadly allowed the church to have such a negative influence on society.

the_syco

People wanted to goto heaven.

People were afraid of being excommunicated.

People were brought up to shun those excommunicated.

The religious schools brought people up to believe in this.

=-=

Personally, I want every religion in Ireland to pay taxes. If they can't pay, level a church or 13, and sell the land.

gozunda

Marley and Marley wrote: »

People blame the Catholic Church for everything that was wrong in Ireland back in those days but the truth is without the borderline cruelty of a lot of Irish citizens in the way they treated people the catholic church wouldn't have been able to do anything.

People seem to forget the church were not armed and if people actually just stood up to them and not tolerated their inhumane bull**** they wouldn't have had any power.People allowed the church to have the power they had because they just didn't stand up to them when it wouldn't have been that difficult a thing to do.

The church only had power and influence in ireland because irish people allowed them to have power and influence but the church is a really convenient whipping boy for all of the country's problems for so long because people just don't want to accept that their parents grandparents etc were complicit in allowing the church to have the negative influence on society that they had.

By the way I'm not saying the church weren't to blame just that they weren't solely to blame.

Don't kid yourself.

The rcc had absolute spiritual and temporal power over its congregations

The rcc could damn you to hell

The rcc could have your children removed by the organs of the state with the flick of a finger

The rcc demanded a weekly and yearly tax off each and every family

Only the church could marry and bury you if you were a Catholic

The rcc controlled the availability of contraception with the conivence of the state

If anyone stood against the rcc - it had the ability to destroy those peoples lives, careers and reputations

We were taught about the power of the landed gentry and landlords in school

Once the landlords left - the rcc clergy stepped in and took their place. The priests lived in the biggest houses and had fine horses and the big motorcars. They had housekeepers and servants whilst the majority of the population lived in poor houses with few if any conveniences.

Above all they could not be questioned and were unquestionably believed by the Gardai and state bodies

What power did any citizen have to stand up against denizens such as these?

sk8erboii

Lol. Cant believe old people look back at this time period and think 'Ah the good old days when people had morals'

My granny and some of her sisters spent time in a convent as kids and some of the stories are just horrifying. They were only taught Irish and strongly discourage (ahem) from speaking English. So when she ran off in her teens she wasn't the most street-smart. Great woman in her own way.
On the other side of the family we only recently found out that my father's aunt was actually his sister or possibly half-sister, we don't know. His mother worked as a servant for landowners into her 50s before a fairly brief illness took her.
One of my aunts went into a convent in England when she was quite heavily pregnant and she remembers being made to scrub steps on her hands and knees while in labour. I can't imagine the nuns' reactions when the baby came out and he was black. :pac:

There's all kinds of horrible cases in most families. I'm sure there's plenty more in mine I know nothing about. Unless you come from several generations of civil servants or the traditional professions odds are that a generation or a couple ago there were people in your family beaten, abused or raped by dickheads with power. Even within those exceptions there'll be plenty of exceptions.

sk8erboii

Deleted User wrote: »

My granny and some of her sisters spent time in a convent as kids and some of the stories are just horrifying. They were only taught Irish and strongly discourage (ahem) from speaking English. So when she ran off in her teens she wasn't the most street-smart. Great woman in her own way.
On the other side of the family we only recently found out that my father's aunt was actually his sister or possibly half-sister, we don't know. His mother worked as a servant for landowners into her 50s before a fairly brief illness took her.
One of my aunts went into a convent in England when she was quite heavily pregnant and she remembers being made to scrub steps on her hands and knees while in labour. I can't imagine the nuns' reactions when the baby came out and he was black. :pac:

There's all kinds of horrible cases in most families. I'm sure there's plenty more in mine I know nothing about. Unless you come from several generations of civil servants or the traditional professions odds are that a generation or a couple ago there were people in your family beaten, abused or raped by dickheads with power. Even within those exceptions there'll be plenty of exceptions.

At least there weren't any foreigners

Muscles Schultz

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Surprised there hasn't been a single thread about this yet. On RTÉ Radio 1's superb Documentary on One - one of the few RTÉ programmes worth paying the licence fee for - earlier today they delved into the death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy of Listowel in February 1946. The programme really should have come with a health warning:

RTÉ Documentary on One: Death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy, February 1946

If you're too busy to listen to it, here's a synopsis of sorts:

One of ten children, Peggy McCarthy worked as a domestic servant for local farming families. At 25, in the summer of 1945, she became pregnant following a local dance (as an old man recounts the dances, 'and this field out here is the courting field, and they say it's responsible for many a man getting the boat for Holyhead in the morning'). Her boyfriend, also from north Kerry, went to England for work ostensibly in order to provide for her but never returned. As was the norm.

On 10 February 1946 Peggy McCarthy went into labour at her home in the outskirts of Listowel, with her mother and a local midwife beside her. However, when she needed extra medical help she had to go to Listowel hospital. A local taxi driver named John Guerin brought her there where, despite pleas from Guerin that her life was in serious danger, she was refused admittance because she conceived a child out of wedlock. Sweet Christ almighty. Let that one sink in about that Christian god and that Christian charity. Our very own Papist Taliban, and they had the state's finances and power behind them. 'The person who refused her admittance then was a nun employed by Kerry County Council who looked after the medical matters in Kerry. The only rule, the only rule - and she was following regulations - was that she couldn't accept the mother because she was an unmarried mother whereas she could accept any other mother who was married.'

In a rapidly deteriorating condition, Peggy and John Guerin were told to go to Tralee, some 27km away by road in 1946. When they finally arrived in St Catherine's hospital in Tralee, and now at death's door, another nun met them and said under no account could they allow her admittance to the hospital. Peggy was told then to go to 'the Union' hospital in Killarney, a further 34km away, 'which was considered to be a more suitable place for her equals'. A historian comes on to explain three things:

1) all hospitals were funded by the Irish state in the form of Kerry County Council;

2) the hospitals were managed by the RCC in alliance with KCC;

3) because an unmarried mother was seen as 'contaminated' it would be unforgivable in the Ireland of 1946 to allow her inside the door of 'respectable' hospitals no matter what the situation was, and consequently she must go to the designated hospital for "fallen" women in Killarney. No debate. No exceptions.

Peggy appears to have made it to Killarney, where she gave birth to a baby girl named Breda, but Peggy herself died shortly after. So the taxi driver, John Guerin, had one final journey back to Listowel - with Peggy's coffin on a bed of straw on the top of his car. When he arrived back to Peggy's local Catholic Church the gates were not merely closed, but locked. They went to the chapel in the local convent, and the same thing. It transpired that the local RCC priest, 66-year-old Canon Patrick Brennan, had decided she could not be given a Christian mass in any of the parish's churches, or a Christian burial in consecrated ground. As the narrator puts the consequences of this, 'In 1946 this was tantamount to locking the gates to heaven to the young mother.'

A crowd had been gathered to pay their respects and as the taxi remained at the locked gate with the girl's body in the coffin on the roof, John Guerin, the taxi driver, got incensed, broke down the gate and managed to get many of the locals to stand alongside him against the ignorant Roman Catholic mullah - an extremely rare event in 1940s Ireland. The priest refused outright to have such a person in his church, so suggested she go to the chapel connected to the Listowel hospital that had refused her first. There, she got a wake but not a funeral mass. She was then. finally, given a Christian burial in an isolated corner of St Michael's cemetery in Listowel.

Now, an old man is saying that Peggy McCarthy's case was extremely unusual because unlike so many others she had people who made a stand for her and risked eternal damnation and whatever other bollocksology was in it. He instances a cowhand who slept not in a house but in a barn and couldn't take life anymore so took his own life in the local river, and the RCC refused outright to give him either a Christian mass or burial because he had committed something called a "mortal sin" by taking his own life.

The historian points out that the people who rose up against the RCC in 1946 were not the middle class in Listowel but rather the same social class as the McCarthys - the small farmers and poorer families in the area. And the RCC and the Irish state weren't finished with pushing the McCarthy family about yet. Peggy's child, Breda, had been born with a serious intellectual difficulty and was raised by Peggy's parents as their own child. 18 years after Peggy died, Peggy's mother died in 1964. A RCC priest knocked on the door and the upshot was that Breda was brought to a Magdalene laundry in Limerick to be "looked after" (to work). She was subsequently transferred to a variety of laundries in Dublin where she was kept to work until the 1990s. As of 2018 she is now in care.

---

Words fail me on what completely savage bastards Irish conservatism produced in 1946. And any of us who have read Máiréad Ní Ghráda's very brave and controversial play An Triail (1964) know this was far from an occasional event. Rather, what happened Peggy McCarthy happened in almost every parish in Ireland to countless "fallen women" (invariably from poorer families) while the lads got the boat never to return again. This sort of societal impulse to control and contain "radical"/"alternative"/"dissenting" views or behaviours doesn't just disappear; rather, the mob tends to find new targets, new scapegoats. Who are the pariahs of Irish society in 2018, and who are the thugs and bullies of Irish society in 2018? Or will we only be able to answer that in 70 years time?

Dude that ain’t a “synopsis”

Tldr

unkel

Devil's advocate here. Why did society openly allow (and even silently encourage?) a young man and a young woman to go copulate in a nearby place...

Deleted User wrote: »

this field out here is the courting field

...knowing the consequences would be disastrous?

yerwanthere123

Shocking case, had never heard of it before. The cruelty of the Church knew no bounds back then. It'd probably still be the same today if they were allowed to get away with it. Thanks for posting, OP.

Mrs OBumble

Happy4all wrote: »

What a sad person you are.

One who calls out dumb-fúck male BS when it rears its head. If you think that's sad ... well that's your call. I ain't apologising for it.

She was 25. They weren't stupid kids.

What sort of society let nurses, not doctors, decide who was admitted to a hospital?

What sort of people took a woman to a hospital, knowing full well she wouldn't get admitted there?

It was a sad f*cked up society all right. Totally incapable of applying any kind of religious or moral principles in a humane way - no matter what the religion was.

The problem wasn't the religion. And still isn't. Grace. Aras Attracta. Etc.

sk8erboii

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

What sort of people took a woman to a hospital, knowing full well she wouldn't get admitted there?

You're right. They should've just let her die for being a non-christian infidel.

Church on Tuesday

The best thing that ever happened to this country was the fall of the Catholic Church in the mid nineties.

Let them seek OUR forgiveness, they have a lot to answer for after all.

gozunda

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

One who calls out dumb-fúck male BS when it rears its head. If you think that's sad ... well that's your call. I ain't apologising for it.

She was 25. They weren't stupid kids.

What sort of society let nurses, not doctors, decide who was admitted to a hospital?

What sort of people took a woman to a hospital, knowing full well she wouldn't get admitted there?

It was a sad f*cked up society all right. Totally incapable of applying any kind of religious or moral principles in a humane way - no matter what the religion was.

The problem wasn't the religion. And still isn't. Grace. Aras Attracta. Etc.

And yet despite all - you live amongst these ...

There was only ONE state religion at that time and it's power was absolute.

You really don't have a clue ...

Church on Tuesday

unkel wrote: »

Devil's advocate here. Why did society openly allow (and even silently encourage?) a young man and a young woman to go copulate in a nearby place...



...knowing the consequences would be disastrous?

Oh cop yourself on

It's incredible pious people like you are still kicking around, absolute bollocks.

Church on Tuesday

[QUOTE=Mrs OBumble;108992402]One who calls out dumb-fúck male BS when it rears its head.[/B] If you think that's sad ... well that's your call. I ain't apologising for it.

She was 25. They weren't stupid kids.

What sort of society let nurses, not doctors, decide who was admitted to a hospital?

What sort of people took a woman to a hospital, knowing full well she wouldn't get admitted there?

It was a sad f*cked up society all right. Totally incapable of applying any kind of religious or moral principles in a humane way - no matter what the religion was.

The problem wasn't the religion. And still isn't. Grace. Aras Attracta. Etc.[/QUOTE]


Sure you think every man is a piece of ****.

Charles Babbage

One small observation. If Peggy McCarthy came from a family of 10, then Breda McCarthy must have had 9 aunts and uncles. Her remaining in an institution isn't entirely due to the church.

suicide_circus

The Irish Catholic bishops, clergy, nuns etc...who were they? they were irish people. Sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of ordinary irish families.

There are horror stories about the RCC all over Europe but nowhere did the scale and cruelty match what happened here. It was an unholy alliance between church, state and citizenry that existed here and all three parts were made up of our forefathers. We need to own this.

honeybear

That documentary aired already this year (Sat & Sun). It was very sad. Documentary on 1 is a wonderful production and RTE Radio 1 get plenty of mileage out of them (repeats & podcasts). Well worth listening to them

Atoms for Peace

Did they ever hear about a Jewish lad who preached forgiveness and died for our sins? What a bunch of absolute *****.

KevRossi

There's still a hell of a lot of people in this country who quite openly support the idea that a child who is baptised has a right to a school place above one who is not. So yeah, the church holds sway amongst some people when its convenient for them.

the_syco

KevRossi wrote: »

There's still a hell of a lot of people in this country who quite openly support the idea that a child who is baptised has a right to a school place above one who is not. So yeah, the church holds sway amongst some people when its convenient for them.

Yup. Even now, the church still owns most schools, and thus still teach their lies to the youth of today.

the_syco

Oh, and is history still optional, but religion mandatory?

Odhinn

Marley and Marley wrote: »

People blame the Catholic Church for everything that was wrong in Ireland back in those days but the truth is without the borderline cruelty of a lot of Irish citizens in the way they treated people the catholic church wouldn't have been able to do anything.

People seem to forget the church were not armed and if people actually just stood up to them and not tolerated their inhumane bull**** they wouldn't have had any power.People allowed the church to have the power they had because they just didn't stand up to them when it wouldn't have been that difficult a thing to do.

The church only had power and influence in ireland because irish people allowed them to have power and influence but the church is a really convenient whipping boy for all of the country's problems for so long because people just don't want to accept that their parents grandparents etc were complicit in allowing the church to have the negative influence on society that they had.

By the way I'm not saying the church weren't to blame just that they weren't solely to blame.

To speak against the Church was to invite the church to speak against yourself. Having been there and done that I can safely say that had I known how much damage that was going to do to me in terms of work opportunities in particular I would have kept my gob shut.

Graces7

Odhinn wrote: »

To speak against the Church was to invite the church to speak against yourself. Having been there and done that I can safely say that had I known how much damage that was going to do to me in terms of work opportunities in particular I would have kept my gob shut.

Very revealing post on many levels

sk8erboii

Odhinn wrote: »

To speak against the Church was to invite the church to speak against yourself. Having been there and done that I can safely say that had I known how much damage that was going to do to me in terms of work opportunities in particular I would have kept my gob shut.

iTs NoT tHe ChUrChEs fAulT

smh at apologists. They repressed irish society in such a malevolent and damaging way. Glad to see theyre dying out in this country

Marley and Marley

Odhinn wrote: »

To speak against the Church was to invite the church to speak against yourself. Having been there and done that I can safely say that had I known how much damage that was going to do to me in terms of work opportunities in particular I would have kept my gob shut.

And yet the people in Listowel stood up against this priest and got the woman a christian burial which tells you they weren't quite as all powerful as people like to think they were.

If people in positions of influence stood up to the church they would have been powerless, people who could have done more to reduce their influence chose not to and decided to go along with what the church wanted.

I understand it was a brave choice to go against the church back in the day but sadly far too many people in this country were far too cowardly for too long.

Marley and Marley

sk8erboii wrote: »

iTs NoT tHe ChUrChEs fAulT

smh at apologists. They repressed irish society in such a malevolent and damaging way. Glad to see theyre dying out in this country

I don't think there are any apologists on this thread.

The church were clearly wrong , however they only had power and influence because irish people let them.

Sometimes more than one thing is true.

sk8erboii

Marley and Marley wrote: »

I don't think there are any apologists on this thread.

The church were clearly wrong , however they only had power and influence because irish people let them.

Sometimes more than one thing is true.

Mate theres someone blaming the people who brought her to a catholic hospital and NOT the people who wouldnt let her in. On the first page

Church on Tuesday

Charles Babbage wrote: »

One small observation. If Peggy McCarthy came from a family of 10, then Breda McCarthy must have had 9 aunts and uncles. Her remaining in an institution isn't entirely due to the church.

Yeah all good little Catholics brainwashed by the church.

Just because you share the same surname doesn't mean jot when you are pious trust me.

Fiery mutant

The biggest shock, is that people still turn up at the doors of these institutions every Sunday.

After all that religion has done to this country, this shocks me more than anything.

Edgware

Marley and Marley wrote: »

And yet the people in Listowel stood up against this priest and got the woman a christian burial which tells you they weren't quite as all powerful as people like to think they were.

If people in positions of influence stood up to the church they would have been powerless, people who could have done more to reduce their influence chose not to and decided to go along with what the church wanted.

I understand it was a brave choice to go against the church back in the day but sadly far too many people in this country were far too cowardly for too long.

Was it in Listowel that the neighbours queued up to shake hands will a local boyo convicted of a violent rape?

LirW

Fiery mutant wrote: »

The biggest shock, is that people still turn up at the doors of these institutions every Sunday.

After all that religion has done to this country, this shocks me more than anything.

Even worse, they still baptise their children in order to get them in local schools and go mad over communion even though they never give a hoot about the church. It's also very important to get married in the church, but please make the mass as short as possible because they actually don't care about faith.

oceanman

what happened the girl was terrible but its a bit late being horrified about something that happened over 75 years ago!....

DS86DS

This was by no means unique to Ireland. Actually, the Magdellen Laundries were founded and based on a similar system in operation in Victorian England.

It was perhaps by no means an ideal arrangement, but just look at how degenerate our society, people and media have become without a strong moral force at play in society.

The glorification of degeneracy and moral relativism has replaced the traditional system of morality in Ireland and other European societies.

And are we all the better for it? Absolutely not, our degenerate and moral relativistic culture is heading the way of the Roman Empire - extinction.

Remove a system of belief and sense of purpose and what you get is moral degeneracy and cultural and ethnic extinction through moral relativism and one world ideology where even religious leaders are afraid to state the path to salvation in case it might offend some of our newcomer friends.

rn

We need to be careful not to judge the past by the standards of the present.

That said, the "good" old days were not as great as many believe.

goose2005

suicide_circus wrote: »

The Irish Catholic bishops, clergy, nuns etc...who were they? they were irish people. Sons, daughters, brothers and sisters of ordinary irish families.

There are horror stories about the RCC all over Europe but nowhere did the scale and cruelty match what happened here. It was an unholy alliance between church, state and citizenry that existed here and all three parts were made up of our forefathers. We need to own this.

no, they were far worse in Spain

wakka12

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

No, she died because a useless lump of a lad knocked her up, and then fúcked off to England instead of marrying her.

You shouldnt have to be married to get medical attention, is the point

Crazy that there are lots of elderly people alive today who experienced an ireland that was like this

wakka12

DS86DS wrote: »

This was by no means unique to Ireland. Actually, the Magdellen Laundries were founded and based on a similar system in operation in Victorian England.

It was perhaps by no means an ideal arrangement, but just look at how degenerate our society, people and media have become without a strong moral force at play in society.

The glorification of degeneracy and moral relativism has replaced the traditional system of morality in Ireland and other European societies.

And are we all the better for it? Absolutely not, our degenerate and moral relativistic culture is heading the way of the Roman Empire - extinction.

Remove a system of belief and sense of purpose and what you get is moral degeneracy and cultural and ethnic extinction through moral relativism and one world ideology where even religious leaders are afraid to state the path to salvation in case it might offend some of our newcomer friends.

But they were hardly a 'moral' force