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

stefjoyce

All the more reason for women priests!

donaghs

BBFAN wrote: »

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

She (the mother) didn’t just die because of the Catholic Church. And the people did not stand up for her. She died because ordinary people in the hospitals etc were afraid of the Catholic Church, and DIDNT stand up for her. Have another listen/read. The public health services employees etc refused her because she was pregnant out of wedlock.

The people stood up against the Church when they wouldn’t allow funeral services etc. This was admirable, but she was dead then.

When her daughter was later taken into care under the supervision of Church, “the people” seem to have acquesed again.

The Church were the root of the problem. But my takewaway from this is twofold.
1. The church were wrong and should be held to account.
2. The church are not as powerful as they were, but given human nature, history will repeat itself. Who are new sacred cows who will let get away with such injustices?

sk8erboii

donaghs wrote: »

She (the mother) didn’t just die because of the Catholic Church. And the people did not stand up for her. She died because ordinary people in the hospitals etc were afraid of the Catholic Church, and DIDNT stand up for her. Have another listen/read. The public health services employees etc refused her because she was pregnant out of wedlock.

The people stood up against the Church when they wouldn’t allow funeral services etc. This was admirable, but she was dead then.

When her daughter was later taken into care under the supervision of Church, “the people” seem to have acquesed again.

The Church were the root of the problem. But my takewaway from this is twofold.
1. The church were wrong and should be held to account.
2. The church are not as powerful as they were, but given human nature, history will repeat itself. Who are new sacred cows who will let get away with such injustices?

‘She didnt die because of the catholic church’
‘She died because people were afraid of the church’

?

Robert Orange Royalty

Robert Orange Royalty wrote: »

I love all the mock indignation from people about how Peggy was treated by people who didn't know of her existence 25 hours ago.

Wonderful defensive mechanism mixed with chronic paranoia there. Are you John Charles McQuaid reincarnated?

Robert Orange Royalty wrote: »

What's the motives of the OP who never told us this story in the last 8 years of their presence on Boards?

Are you taking the piss here? What a bizarre comment, even by your clearly formidable standards. Let's see, from the op: 'On RTÉ Radio 1's superb Documentary on One earlier today they delved into the death of 25-year-old Peggy McCarthy of Listowel in February 1946'. So, maybe, just maybe, the op didn't know about the story 8 years ago? Most people actually learn things as they go through life and react accordingly.

Robert Orange Royalty wrote: »

As shocking as the story is, it's just another attempt to have a go at God

In a thread with steep competition in places, this is by far the most paranoid and obtuse comment. So well done for that.

For starters, it's highly unlikely that your idiosyncratic conception of 'God' exists; in contrast, we know for a fact that Peggy McCarthy did exist. Moreover, that you equate criticism of the actions of the culprits in this to criticism of any 'God' is really scraping the barrel. How about blaming real people and real cultural values rather than deflecting it into the other world? Pathetic, snivelling, unbecoming stuff.

tretorn

tretorn wrote: »

What is the relevance of this sad story.
Bad and all as it was in Ireland the Priest never had as much control as the Imans

Ara sure that's grand so. Because every Irish person I know is really judging the progress of the Irish people by the current thinking of the mullahs of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. "Yeah, there are a few hundred dead children thrown into that septic tank, Mick, but sure listen at least we're not as bad as Mukhtar Mai's village council in Pakistan." High aspirations for the Irish there.

Oh, and if we actually were to fund research on all these industrial homes and so forth, you might find that there wasn't as much between the actions of some Irish people and some of the aforementioned imams. I'm thinking in particular of the nuns, nurses, doctors, solicitors and gardaí who all conspired to illegally put the names of adoptive parents on the birthcerts of babies when they carried out their lucrative businesses of selling Irish children. In the process, depriving tens of thousands of Irish children of the knowledge of their own people forever. That's a theft on an odious scale.

But let's keep it all buried, the whole immorality and criminality of how this society treated so many on the margins. And sure we'll just finance the historians to talk some harmless shíte about Lemass and Whitaker for another 50 years. Nice safe "constitutional history" distorting a massive part of our society's historical reality by keeping this buried.

tretorn wrote: »

Irish people did eventually throw off the shackles when we joined the European Union and when free education was introduced.

Free education in 1967 and EEC membership in 1973. Just how many examples do you need to see that this 'shackles' claim is palpably untrue? How about Eileen Flynn from Wexford who was dismissed as a state-paid teacher for living with a married man - a dismissal the Irish High Court concurred was fair as recently as 1985? No imams there, just 'respectable' judges carrying out the law of this state. And just because somebody can acknowledge the continuation of the RCC far beyond 1967/73 doesn't mean they're unaware that the economically rightwing and liberal Dublin media and rampant consumerism are the replacement shackles. Or that researching this social history means we are in denial of the fundamentalist consumerism culture, wars and environmental destruction consequent on these replacement ideologies of today. It's not a zero-sum game.

tretorn

tretorn wrote: »

Lets move on and leave this stuff in the past. Lets leave the Tuam babies were they are too and not spend trillions of taxpayers money moving them.

Eh, a definite and unequivocal 'No' to that proposal. How it would suit an awful lot of people to keep these crimes covered. It's long overdue that this aspect of Irish history is recorded and acknowledged amid all the political history pushed and twisted by people in power. This is the most valuable history to come out of the hideously pro-establishment clique that pass as professional historians in Ireland today, who would rather hide behind some esoteric faux debate about some trivial document than fund social history and create something approximating the Annales School/French-style historical research in Ireland. No surprises at all that it is an outsider historian, Catherine Corless, who has highlighted the ineffable savagery in Tuam, and the high probability that this treatment of children has been repeated across Ireland. The very last thing that should happen here is that it's buried again and the current distorted understanding of the past is propagated for another generation. It's staggering that anybody would actually aspire to such obscurantism.

It would be very welcome indeed if the Irish Department of Education, Irish Research Council and all the rest could finally put a 10-year moratorium on funding political and military history and direct the money into funding for social history and in particular the treatment of the Peggy McCarthys of twentieth-century Ireland. Ireland is incredibly far behind continental Europe in its understanding of social history.

oceanman

oceanman wrote: »

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

Sure we might as well just end history then? All sorts of megalomaniacs in power have had streets, institutions and monuments named in their memory, and tons of books and media coverage - and that's acceptable because it reflects the political heritage of the people or culture in power.

However, an aspect of social history which throws light on the treatment of a huge swathe of society who were on the margins is given attention and this is begrudged?

At the very least a few of the Peggy McCarthys of Irish society are worthy of being remembered in our street names and public places. For far too long, these lives have been brushed under the carpet. And this notion that being open and forthright about this aspect of our history is weakness or a sign of shame is abject bunkum. It would be a sign of integrity, honour and strength to be honest about it.

donaghs

[quote=

‘She didnt die because of the catholic church’
‘She died because people were afraid of the church’

?[/quote]

You’ve deliberately misquoted me, choosing to omit wording which stated there were others involved. It wasn’t just the Catholic Church who killed her. The main culprits were those people who refused her treatment. Doctors, ambulance staff, hospitals administrators etc. people should have stood up to the church - but that’s easier to say in hindsight. It’s too easy to lay all the blame on the Catholic Church - ignores the millions of obedient people.

sk8erboii

donaghs wrote: »

You’ve deliberately misquoted me, choosing to omit wording which stated there were others involved. It wasn’t just the Catholic Church who killed her. The main culprits were those people who refused her treatment. Doctors, ambulance staff, hospitals administrators etc. people should have stood up to the church - but that’s easier to say in hindsight. It’s too easy to lay all the blame on the Catholic Church - ignores the millions of obedient people.

Damn. Almost as if an oppressive institution that instils intolerance leads to suffering and death or something..

12gauge dave

As a young man who has a deep faith and relationship with god it breaks my heart to read on the crimes of past nuns priests etc.
There is so much faith can do for people and societies in a whole but almost all my generation will live their whole lives with no faith and spread that to their children and we will have a faithless country in a generation or two down the line, so many people void of the fruits of faith due mostly to peoples lack in trust and disgust of individuals actions within the church in distant and recent past.

FatherTed

This happened in 1946 and back then the church had a stranglehold on how the country was run.

But it's 2019 now and yet the same church still runs over 90% of schools in Ireland. What are ye all doing about this?

It wasnt me123

12gauge dave wrote: »

....... due mostly to peoples lack in trust and disgust of individuals actions within the church in distant and recent past.

But it wasn't individuals actions - it was papal decree. Rome knew about the pedophiles, the magdeline laundries etc, its systemic within the whole catholic culture - saying its just the odd one here and there is being disingenuous - 1 in 4 priests in the Diocese of Dublin - that's not a few individuals.

About time the catholic church owned up to it all instead of the drip feeding of disaster after disaster - you can't trust an organisation that has shown it can't be trusted.

whisky_galore

12gauge dave wrote: »

As a young man who has a deep faith and relationship with god it breaks my heart to read on the crimes of past nuns priests etc.
There is so much faith can do for people and societies in a whole but almost all my generation will live their whole lives with no faith and spread that to their children and we will have a faithless country in a generation or two down the line, so many people void of the fruits of faith due mostly to peoples lack in trust and disgust of individuals actions within the church in distant and recent past.

To paraphrase their handbook...the church is only reaping what it has sown. Can't really blame people for distrusting an organisation that has demonstrated itself to be rotten.

oceanman

FatherTed wrote: »

This happened in 1946 and back then the church had a stranglehold on how the country was run.

But it's 2019 now and yet the same church still runs over 90% of schools in Ireland. What are ye all doing about this?

the church has stated that its happy to hand over the running of the schools to the state, its the state that seems not to want to take them back.....I wonder why????

oceanman

oceanman wrote: »

the church has stated that its happy to hand over the running of the schools to the state, its the state that seems not to want to take them back.....I wonder why????

It would presumably cost the state billions to buy all the RCC school property. Given that religious institutions are selling off large parts of schools to property developers -e.g.
Clonkeen College - and making these schools smaller, and the Irish state sits back and refuses to intervene by saving these schools, there's no doubt that the state is now entirely responsible for the continuing ownership of most Irish schools by that private business that is the Catholic Church. The question is would most people in 2019 support the state spending billions to own the schools when they can use those properties as schools and put that money into something else?

Topgear on Dave

Currently down home for me the religious secondary schools are the "respectable" ones (and always were) and my old local tech is really struggling for numbers.

Mrs OBumble

road_high wrote: »

, hard to get your head around these days that a mother would be left to die like that.

Check out Savita's story for an up to date version.

markodaly

Deleted User wrote: »

The question is would most people in 2019 support the state spending billions to own the schools when they can use those properties as schools and put that money into something else?

Of course, they don't, just like the new maternity hospital. It is easy to blame religious institutions but the same people would balk at paying more tax to fund land purchases.

mrsdewinter

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****.

As long as we pin all the blame on the RCC we leave ourselves open to making the very same mistakes.

In the instance of Listowel, on that one night, the people stood up to the Church and should be applauded for that. But the reason their gesture stands out in the memory is because they were kicking out at both the Church and going against the (unwritten but very strict) rules of society at the time.

Demonise the RCC all you like, but you're taking your eye off the ball. (For the record, I don't know what has replaced the RCC as the ideology we all unquestioningly follow, but I know that we could do with a bit more rigorous thinking.)

jmayo

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.

Oh FFS.

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?

Where should they have taken her, the local vets. :mad:

jaysus fook I do hope you are just trying to act the agent provocateur because if you are for real you really have some odious outlooks.

You are attacking the one man who showed some true humanity towards this woman. :mad:

BTW he took her to two hospitals and a home AFAIK.

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

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.

Ah bullshyte.

Yes it was a sad society, but who set the moral standards and who set the principles upon which the society operated?

Who ran the homes, who used the women and children as slave labourers ?
Who profited from selling babies to the highest bidders?

There will always be sadistic individuals who should never be within a million miles of some positions ala Aras Attracta, but from the foundation of this state right up to the 90s one institution set the ethical and morals standards by which this state operated.

And those supposed lofty christian standards fostered a culture and society where some women and children were left to the mercy of sadists and paedophiles.
Some women were treated as no better than chattel whose offspring could be bought and sold.

Yes, ordinary people were at fault, but the supposed moral guardians were anything but moral.
Christian values me ar**.
It is quite easy to extrapolate how the worst of the SS and nazis were good old catholics.

We had a religious imposed caste system where some were treated as untouchables because they had fallen from grace, ala usually not followed the rigid church rules regarding sex or marriage.

I heard this story on radio many months ago and there was some discussion about it at the time, contrary to what the OP states.

This story shows the good in Irish society even back then as in the hackney driver and his fight for this woman when both alive and dead and the parishioners that stood with him, but it also starkly shows the despicable part of that society.

And one poster here shows how if given a chance the mindset that the church can do no wrong is still alive and well to this day.

TeaBagMania

Deleted User wrote: »

It would presumably cost the state billions to buy all the RCC school property.

Buy? the state should seize the land.
The RCC and their child raping priests can f*** off back to italy

topper75

Atoms for Peace wrote: »

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

The powers that were back in the day in the Roman empire thought his story and spiel would help them for governance purposes.

As did the powers that were here a century ago.

If the Jesus thing (one sole God authority, a gatekeeper for a promised pleasant afterlife, a saviour from death itself) wasn't a tool for power, nobody would have heard of him. You'd know as much about the 'holy land' as you do about Peru or Fiji.

It wasnt me123

TeaBagMania wrote: »

Buy? the state should seize the land.
The RCC and their child raping priests can f*** off back to italy

Exactly, the RCC still owe the State millions for the sex abuse scandals.

Do a compulsory purchase order for €1 per school - after all, its the State who has built alot of these schools - definitely in the last 50 years - and keeps them running and funds them - not the RCC - they should f*ck right off out of State business.

Mrs OBumble

jmayo wrote: »

Oh FFS.

You are attacking the one man who showed some true humanity towards this woman. :mad:


.

Not quite sure where you're getting that from: the man I'm attacking ran away to England and was never heard from again (apparently - I bet he went home to mammy again after the trouble "died down").

Men got away with shyte like this because society let them.

I wonder where the hackney driver was from, that he was prepared to take Peggy in his taxi. Obviously was wasnt concerned about what the church-hierarchy might say.

Church on Tuesday

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Not quite sure where you're getting that from: the man I'm attacking ran away to England and was never heard from again (apparently - I bet he went home to mammy again after the trouble "died down").

Men got away with shyte like this because society let them.

I wonder where the hackney driver was from, that he was prepared to take Peggy in his taxi. Obviously was wasnt concerned about what the church-hierarchy might say.

No, the Church got away with shyte like this because society let them.

FatherTed

It wasnt me123 wrote: »

Exactly, the RCC still owe the State millions for the sex abuse scandals.

Do a compulsory purchase order for €1 per school - after all, its the State who has built alot of these schools - definitely in the last 50 years - and keeps them running and funds them - not the RCC - they should f*ck right off out of State business.

I'm sure it's not as easy as telling the RCC here's €1 for each school...

twowheelsonly

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Honestly, does anyone else think that at least some of the utter contempt for humanity displayed by members of religious orders is tied to the celibacy thing? That either (a) they're so bitter and jealous that they have to suppress their own sexuality that it fills them with rage to see others enjoying theirs, or (b) that prolonged sexual frustration (assuming many of them followed the church's ridiculous prohibition on masturbation as well) just leads to chronic cranky c*ntishness?.............

IMO it wasn't just the celibacy but the enforced celibacy on both Priests and Nuns - that being enforced in a huge amount of cases by the families of the Priests and Nuns themselves.

'Back in the day' a families big ambition was to have a Priest/Nun, a Garda and a Schoolteacher in the family. For those with loftier ambitions the schoolteacher could be traded for a Doctor but a Priest or Nun was a 'had to have' for a family to be really proud. In most cases the parents decided on your behalf that you were the chosen one so basically you ended up with loads of hormone ridden teenagers being sent off to Maynooth or wherever and nothing to do with their hormones but suppress them - which came out later either as anger or sexual abuse of those least likely to complain or report them i.e. children.

A very elderly gentleman Priest that I know well once told me that in his class of 20 seminarians, only himself and one other were there of their own free will and choice. Everyone else was sent by their families, something that he found very sad. Even sadder (in his words) were those that were delighted to be there because they had been 'chosen' by their parents to be so despite not having any aptitude nor calling to the religion.

markodaly

It wasnt me123 wrote: »

Exactly, the RCC still owe the State millions for the sex abuse scandals.

Do a compulsory purchase order for €1 per school - after all, its the State who has built alot of these schools - definitely in the last 50 years - and keeps them running and funds them - not the RCC - they should f*ck right off out of State business.

The state is well within their rights to CP the land, but they are not in their rights to buy land for just €1. Totally unconstitutional and the Irish courts, as well as the ECJ, will smack any of that populist nonsense down.

So, try again....

markodaly

twowheelsonly wrote: »

A very elderly gentleman Priest that I know well once told me that in his class of 20 seminarians, only himself and one other were there of their own free will and choice. Everyone else was sent by their families, something that he found very sad. Even sadder (in his words) were those that were delighted to be there because they had been 'chosen' by their parents to be so despite not having any aptitude nor calling to the religion.

A very apt point.

Many of the people themselves in religious orders were there because there was nowhere else for them to go. Life did not have the same opportunities open to them as of today.

The trend of the time was the eldest got the farm, the next eldest became a priest, and the rest emigrated, and that as just the sons. If the women were not married off, then it was not uncommon for them to be sent away to a nunnery or emigrate as well. One less mouth to feed and all that.

Life was harsh and cruel.

Hotblack Desiato

oceanman wrote: »

the church has stated that its happy to hand over the running of the schools to the state

and if you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.