Garda Apology

Muahahaha

Nobelium wrote: »

There was no 'forced' adoption. Other female Gardai who found themselves in that situation at that time, opted to keep the child and kept their jobs. They were even transferred closer to home.

This is an outright lie. You clearly havent listened to the documentary. She was put under severe pressure by senior management in the Gardai to hand up her baby for adoption, as were thousands of women who had 'illegitimate' children in Catholic Ireland. The Church was selling these babies to childless couples in the US, they even got the children professionally photographed to produce a fcukin sales catologue for human beings.

Deleted User wrote: »

That's it in a nutshell. It wasn't the dark ages. Contraception was readily available. She's obviously feeling guilty for her actions. She should be embarrassed to be drawing attention to herself.

More lies, if contraception was readily available in 1984 then why was Richard Branson fined in an Irish court of law for selling condoms in 1991? "readily available" does not include going to a GP cap in hand, especially as many GPs back in those days were under the iron fist of the Church and told they would be going to hell for prescribing condoms. You clearly did not live through this period of Ireland if you think that condoms were "readily available"

1641

Deleted User wrote: »

In 1983, a single woman just had to go to her GP and get a prescription for the Pill, same as now. This is FACT. Mind you, they also had to get a prescription in order to legally obtain condoms!

It was a FACT if it was a "sympathetic" GP. This was more readily the case in the cities than in smaller towns.

Whether the GPs were naturally more conservative in the country or they were more concerned about the local reputation (and local church reaction) probably varied. The FACT is that the law said it had to be for "bona fide family planning purposes". It did now say "married" but was widely interpreted this way. This was even for condoms. And in the country when you got your prescription you still had to find a pharmacist who stocked them. Many didn't - whether for genuinely held ethical reasons or because of local pressure from the clergy and holy Joes.

Muahahaha

Muahahaha wrote: »

This is an outright lie. You clearly havent listened to the documentary. She was put under severe pressure to hand up her baby for adoption, as were thousands of women who had 'illegitimate' children in Catholic Ireland.

More lies, if contraception was readily available in 1984 then why was Richard Branson fined in an Irish court of law for selling condoms in 1991? "Widely available" does not include going to a GP cap in hand, especially as many GPs back in those days were under the iron fist of the Church and told they would be going to hell for prescribing condoms.

Having lived through that era, I know that contraception was readily available. GPs weren’t ogres. They knew people better than the Church. No need to go cap in hand. Just go in and make your request and come out with either a 6 month prescription for the pill or an open ended prescription for condoms. Your marital status didn’t bother them (They were supposed to prescribe contraception for married women only) GPs also knew what pharmacies supplied contraception as not all did. This was a rural area.
Also back then, many more single mothers were keeping their babies and their jobs.

Stop moaning ffs

A lot of the more uninformed and therefore heartless opinions here very clearly didnt even listen to the documentary. And very obviously weren’t alive at the time or didn’t live here.

Mortelaro

A pharmacy in Gorey co Wexford asked for your marriage certificate if you wanted to buy condoms when they became somewhat legal
Fact

Mortelaro

Mortelaro wrote: »

A pharmacy in Gorey co Wexford asked for your marriage certificate if you wanted to buy condoms when they became somewhat legal
Fact

And I’m sure at least one other didn’t bat an eyelid!

Mrsmum

The way I look at it is that an unexpected/unwanted pregnancy is always, even today, as hard a time in a woman's life as you could get. Some women realise they are ok with it and they are the lucky ones although it's still not easy at all being a single mom. Even now when a woman who feels she can't keep the baby,chooses abortion over adoption, that's not without grief either. And all women are under pressure from various elements of their life, boyfriend, family, college, work etc while trying to make the correct decision. Unless there is actual force put on the woman, I don't have a problem with these various people making their feeling known as it also impacts them. That's how grown up come to any decision, gather all the info and decide. Seeing as this lady didn't want to marry she had two really hard choices. I might add getting married quickly was most often the preferred route back then and she was strong enough to stand up against that. Neither of the other choices was ever going to be easy. I personally don't believe she gave up the child only because of outside pressure, I think she knew fine well what keeping the child would mean. But now the narrative is she had kept the baby all would have been bluebells and butterflies. It sure wouldn't have been. She would have had a hard life in another way then.
Maybe the state should put out a general apology to all single mothers and all those who had an abortion or an adoption because every single one of them were also between a rock and a hard place. I don't get how she is anyway unusual.

Muahahaha

Deleted User wrote: »

Having lived through that era, I know that contraception was readily available. GPs weren’t ogres. They knew people better than the Church. No need to go cap in hand. Just go in and make your request and come out with either a 6 month prescription for the pill or an open ended prescription for condoms. Your marital status didn’t bother them (They were supposed to prescribe contraception for married women only) GPs also knew what pharmacies supplied contraception as not all did. This was a rural area.
Also back then, many more single mothers were keeping their babies and their jobs.

If you think that condoms were realily available in Ireland in the 1980s then you're deluded. The Church was doing everything in their power to make sure they weren't.

I note you ignored my question so I'll ask it again- if (as you say) condoms were widely available in Ireland in 1984 then why was Richard Branson fined in an Irish court of law for selling them in 1991? Widely available to any reasonable person means you can just go into a shop and buy them, no questions asked. That simply was not the case in 1984 and it is completely misleading and disingenuous to claim it was.

Mrsmum

1641 wrote: »

Contraception was widely available ? Get lost.

In the early 80s we were still operating under the Health (Family Planning) Act, 1979 - the "Irish solution for an Irish problem".
Contraception was available for "bona fide family planning purposes" and had to be dispensed by a Pharmacist on production of a valid medical prescription. There were Family Planning clinics in the cities which circumvented this - and around the country there could be found GPs who interpreted "bona fide family planning purposes" loosely but it was still a act of determination and subterfuge for singles to get contraceptives. It certainly could be done but they were not widely available and you would probably be technically breaking the law. It wasn't until 1985 that the law was liberalised (somewhat).

I can only tell you honestly , I was a country girl coming to Dublin at that time and I who had no knowledge of practically anything, knew where to get the pill.
Anyway it's a moot point because she and the guy said they had used contraceptives on other occasions.

Mortelaro

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And I’m sure at least one other didn’t bat an eyelid!

In my experience of rural Ireland at the time,they were all towing the line
It might have been different in urban Ireland

Mrsmum

Mortelaro wrote: »

In my experience of rural Ireland at the time,they were all towing the line
It might have been different in urban Ireland

She was working in Dublin.

Mortelaro

Muahahaha wrote: »

I note you ignored my question so I'll ask it again- if (as you say) condoms were widely available in Ireland in 1984 then why was Richard Branson fined in an Irish court of law for selling them in 1991? Widely available to any reasonable person means you can just go into a shop and buy them, no questions asked. That simply was not the case in 1984 and it is completely misleading and disingenuous to claim it was.

Students unions were handing them out for free,so that would have been handy in some urban areas
There was no students union in templemore and if it was anything like Gorey (probably a lot worse!) Your supply of condoms relative to how many times you wanted or got nookie would have been poor

Mortelaro

Mrsmum wrote: »

She was working in Dublin.

It doesn't matter
You just won't have had that stash of condoms on you like today when ordinarily you needed a prescription for them
So your number of times having sex versus having a condom available would be a lot higher
Those were the Neanderthal times some of us lived through

Mrsmum

Mortelaro wrote: »

It doesn't matter
You just won't have had that stash of condoms on you like today when ordinarily you needed a prescription for them
So your number of times having sex versus having a condom available would be a lot higher
Those were the Neanderthal times some of us lived through

Indeed. I'm just surprised, if she was sexually active in those days where an unexpected pregnancy was a catastrophe, why she wasn't on the pill. Her and him were not a one off.

mariaalice

Muahahaha wrote: »

If you think that condoms were realily available in Ireland in the 1980s then you're deluded. The Church was doing everything in their power to make sure they weren't.

I note you ignored my question so I'll ask it again- if (as you say) condoms were widely available in Ireland in 1984 then why was Richard Branson fined in an Irish court of law for selling them in 1991? Widely available to any reasonable person means you can just go into a shop and buy them, no questions asked. That simply was not the case in 1984 and it is completely misleading and disingenuous to claim it was.

You are mixing up official Ireland and unofficial Ireland, I had no problem getting contraceptives in Ireland in the very early 1980s it was not an issue for the majority of people. Things were changing by then, an example from Limerick In 1975 Kemmy founded the Limerick Family Planning Clinic. At the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Kemmy. Having said that the very early1980s were probably the last gasb of a powerful Catholic church in Ireland.

Mortelaro

Mrsmum wrote: »

Indeed. I'm just surprised, if she was sexually active in those days where an unexpected pregnancy was a catastrophe, why she wasn't on the pill. Her and him were not a one off.

I'm not surprised, you sound like a rebel of the time
Being on the pill from rural Ireland if unmarried simply was rare including working in Dublin
A majority would be just too embarrassed to go to a doctor that actually would prescribe it
I don't know any of the time on it,certainly none I met :O
It was withdrawal, chance it or if you had one a condom

Muahahaha

Majella live on radio 1 now, she spent 16 years in an industrial school on top of all this

Stop moaning ffs

If you listen to the doc you’ll see she was treated horrifically and over a sustained period of years. The questions she had to answer and manner of judgement on her were just appalling.

Please listen to it before getting up on the high horse. The. Come back and debate.

1641

Deleted User wrote: »

Having lived through that era, I know that contraception was readily available. GPs weren’t ogres. They knew people better than the Church. No need to go cap in hand. Just go in and make your request and come out with either a 6 month prescription for the pill or an open ended prescription for condoms. Your marital status didn’t bother them (They were supposed to prescribe contraception for married women only) GPs also knew what pharmacies supplied contraception as not all did. This was a rural area.
Also back then, many more single mothers were keeping their babies and their jobs.

Mrsmum wrote: »

I can only tell you honestly , I was a country girl coming to Dublin at that time and I who had no knowledge of practically anything, knew where to get the pill.
Anyway it's a moot point because she and the guy said they had used contraceptives on other occasions.

It was nothing to do with GPs being ogres. It was to do with the law, social pressure and church pressure. The latter two were obviously much stronger in rural areas than in Dublin (and perhaps some of the larger cities).


Strangely enough, the pill could be got more readily than condoms for single women. This is because the GP could describe it as a "cycle regulator" rather than a contraceptive and thereby sidestep the law. Similarly most pharmacists stocked the pill while many (outside of the cities) did not stock condoms. It was generally difficult for singles to get a prescription for condoms - as opposed to getting them from a family planning clinic - of which there were few.



The GPs who prescribed the pill for singles in rural areas were a minority. They had to stand up to considerable pressure to do so. After all they lived locally, their kids went to schools locally, etc. THe Church had a very powerful presence locally in rural Ireland. And there were no family planning clinics.



Many who came up to Dublin from the country in those days (late 70s/early80s) and who wanted to access contraception did so through one of the family planning clinics. That is not to say some/many city GPs wouldn't "oblige".

Sardonicat

judeboy101 wrote: »

She knowingly had sex outside marriage and an illegitimate child with a fellow recruit , in a time where rightly or wrongly, would bring disrepute to the office of garda. What did she think would happen?

That her private life remain private?

Mortelaro

That's true about the 'cycle regulator'
But again,human nature meant you weren't shy about having sex but you'd be very slow for the first time to go to a doctor to see if you'd get your cycle regulated because well..you'd be changing either being thrown out getting a lecture or being successful
Its having the courage in the midst of the overwhelming 'moral' hell fire and damnation conditioning to go to that surgery the first time that failed most women for a long time
Lads on the other hand were tasked with getting the condoms
Now if you were lucky and had a pack of three,where would you be going after a few weeks?
As I said neanderthal times

jmayo

riemann wrote: »

So this lady is talking about getting personal apologies from 2 heads that didn't have anything to do with how she was treated over 30 years ago.

If she's so keen to move forward why bring all this up after so long?

Why go after people who didn't do anything to her, instead of pointing the finger at those actually responsible?

One wonders what the end game is.

And I do wonder how many Gardai and Garda connected ones are posting on this thread.

I see the old smear campaigns are still the flavour of the month with AGS.

When she has asked for her files, she got heavily redacted ones.
By all accounts so heavily redacted that on some memos, letters the only thing recognisable is her name.

Now that is something the current leadership and the current force could do something about.
But it seems her actual files have been lost.
Fook me isn't it very coincidental that the AGS keep losing files that may shed light on the toxic septic organisation that it is.

BTW I hope a case is taken through GDPR legislation to get her the files.

And yes I do hope she screws money out of the AGS (i.e. taxpayers) because as shure as fook that is the only way changes are forced through.

judeboy101 wrote: »

You obviously don't know much about how the guards are meant to conduct themselves, they have rules about bringing the uniform into disrepute.

You are having a laugh.
Disrepute, the AGS organisation is now seen as no better than gutter dwellers who stop at nothing to protect itself and it's corrupt ways.

BTW do you get your penalty points revoked for smearing people on internet forums these days?

mariaalice

1641 wrote: »

It was nothing to do with GPs being ogres. It was to do with the law, social pressure and church pressure. The latter two were obviously much stronger in rural areas than in Dublin (and perhaps some of the larger cities).


Strangely enough, the pill could be got more readily than condoms for single women. This is because the GP could describe it as a "cycle regulator" rather than a contraceptive and thereby sidestep the law. Similarly most pharmacists stocked the pill while many (outside of the cities) did not stock condoms. It was generally difficult for singles to get a prescription for condoms - as opposed to getting them from a family planning clinic - of which there were few.



The GPs who prescribed the pill for singles in rural areas were a minority. They had to stand up to considerable pressure to do so. After all they lived locally, their kids went to schools locally, etc. THe Church had a very powerful presence locally in rural Ireland. And there were no family planning clinics.



Many who came up to Dublin from the country in those days (late 70s/early80s) and who wanted to access contraception did so through one of the family planning clinics. That is not to say some/many city GPs wouldn't "oblige".

Its amazing what people think went on in the 1980s GP prescribe the pill to regulate peroids from the 1960s on now maybe they should have been more honest but its mad to think GP was in mortal terror of the Catholic church. Also the bizzare ideas people have about rural Ireland.

Mortelaro

jmayo wrote: »

You are having a laugh.
Disrepute, the AGS organisation is now seen as no better than gutter dwellers who stop at nothing to protect itself and it's corrupt ways.

BTW do you get your penalty points revoked for smearing people on internet forums these days?

To be fair sexual morality would have been expected in the Gardaí at the time and obviously scruples of the highest order in terms of who the members were and what they stood for

The fact that cancelling speeding fines and similar (the corruption you're referring to) was exposed and dealt with and officers exposing it and related issues vilified is irrelevant to this debate because at the time and up to today that was an acceptable norm in society (albeit the vilification wasn't exposed)
Having babies outside of wedlock or divorce was still frowned upon by the majority even if methods of dealing with it were swept under the carpet
A certain amount of the blame for the problem has to be laid at the general population and in some cases all of it in my opinion

mariaalice

The interview on RTE is riveting the poor woman.

1641

mariaalice wrote: »

Its amazing what people think went on in the 1980s GP prescribe the pill to regulate peroids from the 1960s on now maybe they should have been more honest but its mad to think GP was in mortal terror of the Catholic church. Also the bizzare ideas people have about rural Ireland.

It wasn't just mortal terror of the church. Some were probably genuine conscientious objectors. But more generally, it was the law - some interpreted this more loosely than others, of course.

And in rural areas it wasn't just the authority of the local Parish Priest - associated laity could be much worse. A parish priest who was not "toeing the line" was liable to be reported on to the Bishop. A rural GP (and his family) had to live and work in that environment.

Stop moaning ffs

This interview is such a hard listen. The poor woman. So happy she’s happy and has overcome it all now.

Yurt2

The instinct in Ireland (particularly in the public sector and state agencies) is to protect the institution at all costs. Bullying, sexual harassment, corrupt behaviour - above all, sweep it under the carpet and protect the institution. And the conceit is that the higher up the totem pole you are the more you are the institution, and the interests of you as an individual and the organization are one and the same. Really, they're just saving their own skin.

The way this woman was treated was beyond appalling.

Jupiter Mulligan

MrFresh wrote: »

How did she get him into trouble?

Sorry, but I'm not a remedial teacher. Ask an adult.

Yurt2

Michael Noonan, quite rightly, being thrown under the bus here. As I said in the above post, protect the institution (re: the pension), fe*k the mission of the institution. Disgusting.