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"Significant" numbers of babies remains actually found

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Comments

  • #452
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    infogiver wrote:
    I'm sorry you think it's funny. It's not really. Are you saying that the great and good of Ireland (your grandparents and mine by the way) didn't know that the girls were in the institutions? Wether you like it or not nobody thought there was anything wrong with the situation and that's why it continued until well into the 1990s. Are you seriously suggesting that people in the 90s were afraid of the Church because quite clearly they weren't.


    Amusing is not the same as funny. Of course they knew, they also knew the power the church had and control over their followers. The church losing its grip has allowed all the shameful events become known. The older generation in the 90's still deferred to the church.


  • #453
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    Calina wrote: »
    I think it is likely a lot of people did not necessarily know what conditions were like if they had no reason to be aware. Particularly if there was no such establishment in their neighbourhood.

    They knew perfectly well. Tradesmen delivered. The girls were traipsed out to mass etc.... they knew very well and thought it was just fine. Once again the families of the girls were quite happy to leave them there. Forever


  • #454
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    infogiver wrote:
    Your painting a picture of a country entirely populated by cowering brain dead morons. What is the problem with just accepting that people didn't approve of unmarried mothers for a myriad of reasons including inheritance rights and land ownership and the institutions provided the perfect solution to those who broke the rules?


    So even if society didn't approve of unmarried mothers, this justifys the treatment children recieved at the hands of the religious orders?


  • #455
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    eviltwin wrote: »
    My aunt was a nun in Navan Road mother and baby home. They had a day room for visitors, very nice with cups of tea and cake and the inmates presented in their Sunday best. They probably thought their daughter was living a grand life. They didn't see the reality. To the day she died she refused to see the treatment of those girls as a bad thing. In her mind the alternative was worse, they had a roof over their heads, food to eat, so what if they had to do a bit of work to repay the nuns generosity.

    What was the alternative in your mind eviltwin?


  • #456
    Calina
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Calina


    infogiver wrote: »
    Your painting a picture of a country entirely populated by cowering brain dead morons.
    What is the problem with just accepting that people didn't approve of unmarried mothers for a myriad of reasons including inheritance rights and land ownership and the institutions provided the perfect solution to those who broke the rules?

    Because it doesn't reflect reality.


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  • #457
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    nhunter100 wrote: »
    So even if society didn't approve of unmarried mothers, this justifys the treatment children recieved at the hands of the religious orders?

    It doesn't justify it.
    It does explain it.


  • #458
    Calina
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,219 ✭✭✭Calina


    infogiver wrote: »
    They knew perfectly well. Tradesmen delivered. The girls were traipsed out to mass etc.... they knew very well and thought it was just fine. Once again the families of the girls were quite happy to leave them there. Forever

    This does not mean everyone knew.

    It seems to me you wish to absolve the church of its role here.


  • #459
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    infogiver wrote:
    It doesn't justify it. It does explain it.


    Society being conditioned to feel shame for the presence of children being born out of wedlock does not explain the treatment those same children recieved from the religious orders.


  • #460
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    Calina wrote: »
    Because it doesn't reflect reality.

    I think it does reflect reality.
    It's hard for Irish people to accept that our very recent relatives were callous hypocritical uncaring snobs but that's the way I see it.
    Nobody shouted stop until well after the church had started its steep decline despite the modern world having infiltrated us via TV and increasing foreign travel since the 60s.
    I just have no problem acknowledging that.


  • #461
    eviltwin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    infogiver wrote: »
    What was the alternative in your mind eviltwin?

    I can't say, I wasn't living in that era. I also can't say what she believed the alternative to be as we never talked about it. She was a callous woman. After having a baby outside marriage myself she never spoke to me again.


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  • #462
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    infogiver wrote:
    It's hard for Irish people to accept that our very recent relatives were callous hypocritical uncaring snobs but that's the way I see it.


    So that made it ok for the women and children in these homes to be treated they way they were by the religious orders? It only became known in the last few years that senior members of the church swore victims of sexual abuse to silence. If everyone knew the behaviour of the church and oath of silence would hardly be necessary.


  • #463
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    eviltwin wrote:
    I can't say, I wasn't living in that era. I also can't say what she believed the alternative to be as we never talked about it. She was a callous woman. After having a baby outside marriage myself she never spoke to me again.


    The clergy shared many of the attitudes the Nazis shared towards the inmates of the camps. I read an interview with a former guard when put to him about the treatment of his charges he dismissed talk of compassion by saying he did not look upon them as human. The treatment of the Tuam babies mirrors the attitude of that former Camp guard.


  • #464
    volchitsa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,438 ✭✭✭✭volchitsa


    infogiver wrote: »
    I think it does reflect reality.
    It's hard for Irish people to accept that our very recent relatives were callous hypocritical uncaring snobs but that's the way I see it.
    Nobody shouted stop until well after the church had started its steep decline despite the modern world having infiltrated us via TV and increasing foreign travel since the 60s.
    I just have no problem acknowledging that.

    No, the bit you have difficulty with is the role of the church in teaching and indeed defining what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn't. They ran the schools, and were the self declared moral guardians of Irish society.

    You don't get to set yourself up as the official experts on morality in society and then blame everyone else for massive and systemic moral failings in that society.

    "If a woman cannot stand in a public space and say, without fear of consequences, that men cannot be women, then women have no rights at all." Helen Joyce



  • #465
    SPDUB
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,356 ✭✭✭SPDUB


    infogiver wrote: »
    I think it does reflect reality.
    It's hard for Irish people to accept that our very recent relatives were callous hypocritical uncaring snobs but that's the way I see it.
    Nobody shouted stop until well after the church had started its steep decline despite the modern world having infiltrated us via TV and increasing foreign travel since the 60s.
    I just have no problem acknowledging that.

    Indeed .

    I remember hearing a "girl was brave for taking care of her baby " in 1987


  • #466
    jobbridge4life
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,759 ✭✭✭jobbridge4life


    volchitsa wrote: »
    No, the bit you have difficulty with is the role of the church in teaching and indeed defining what was acceptable behaviour and what wasn't. They ran the schools, and were the self declared moral guardians of Irish society.

    You don't get to set yourself up as the official experts on morality in society and then blame everyone else for massive and systemic moral failings in that society.

    That is very true and the buck must stop with the Church but I don't think that we can afford to ignore the role played by individuals citizens and the entire country as a whole either.

    'It takes a village' to incarcerate women, ignore their suffering and tolerate hundreds of children being forcibly adopted or dumped in septic tanks.

    My mother was in a Mother and Baby home in 1988. My Grandparents, aunts and uncles don't get to excuse themselves by saying 'ah sure the Church made us'. They participated. They assisted.


  • #467
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    jobbridge4life wrote:
    My mother was in a Mother and Baby home in 1988. My Grandparents, aunts and uncles don't get to excuse themselves by saying 'ah sure the Church made us'. They participated. They assisted.


    It doesn't excuse your relatives behaviour to your mother, but they were conditioned from the day they were born to follow the teaching of the church. My own mother will hear nothing against the church, she believes all the 'scandals' are the product of people who want to destroy the church.


  • #468
    pilly
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,005 ✭✭✭pilly


    I was wondering how long it would take the usual suspects to come along and argue the opposite just for the sake of it rather than from any true belief.

    I just don't feed them.


  • #469
    smurgen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,933 ✭✭✭smurgen


    infogiver wrote: »
    I'm sorry you think it's funny. It's not really.
    Are you saying that the great and good of Ireland (your grandparents and mine by the way) didn't know that the girls were in the institutions?
    Wether you like it or not nobody thought there was anything wrong with the situation and that's why it continued until well into the 1990s.
    Are you seriously suggesting that people in the 90s were afraid of the Church because quite clearly they weren't.

    Do you think that the people at the time,the general public knew bodies were being dumped in mass graves like the 800 in the septic tank?i think not.and now that it's discovered the church is trying to spread the blame?


  • #470
    Nika Bolokov
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭Nika Bolokov


    What's also disturbing is that thousands of people up and down the country will go to a Catholic Church tomorrow and won't bat an eyelid before donating money to an organisation that perpetrated such vile evil deeds and not request that they reform or change.

    They still think Gay people are sinners , they still want to interfere in your private life and they make you do a course on marriage taught by a Virgin who's never been in a relationship before they marry you.

    They own millions in property assets including prime Dublin real estate that lies mainly empty and preach we should help the poor, they sell land for luxury apartments and spend the money on themselves.

    If it was any other type of organisation it would be shut down , shunned and subject to legal obliteration.

    One day the the last of them will wise up.


  • #471
    Nika Bolokov
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 651 ✭✭✭Nika Bolokov


    smurgen wrote: »
    Do you think that the people at the time,the general public knew bodies were being dumped in mass graves like the 800 in the septic tank?i think not.and now that it's discovered the church is trying to spread the blame?

    If they did they wouldn't have cared.


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  • #472
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    eviltwin wrote: »
    I can't say, I wasn't living in that era. I also can't say what she believed the alternative to be as we never talked about it. She was a callous woman. After having a baby outside marriage myself she never spoke to me again.

    Well that was her loss eviltwin and not yours.


  • #473
    neonsofa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,476 ✭✭✭neonsofa


    Nika Bolokov wrote: »
    What's also disturbing is that thousands of people up and down the country will go to a Catholic Church tomorrow and won't bat an eyelid before donating money to an organisation that perpetrated such vile evil deeds and not request that they reform or change.

    They still think Gay people are sinners , they still want to interfere in your private life and they make you do a course on marriage taught by a Virgin who's never been in a relationship before they marry you.

    They own millions in property assets including prime Dublin real estate that lies mainly empty and preach we should help the poor, they sell land for luxury apartments and spend the money on themselves.

    If it was any other type of organisation it would be shut down , shunned and subject to legal obliteration.

    One day the the last of them will wise up.

    Even on a lower level, my own mother would still be of that thinking despite the fact she has "illegitimate" grandchildren (who could have ended up like these poor babies if we werent lucky enough to be of a different time) and witnessed firsthand what I went through myself as a young unwed mother. There would still be comments made about sin in our house even though she dotes on the resulting children of said sin. It's hypocritical in the extreme. A family member is gay and she would still refer to gay people as "them". It is very frustrating that even though she has seen firsthand how hurtful her thinking is, she sees nothing wrong with it.


  • #474
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    smurgen wrote: »
    Do you think that the people at the time,the general public knew bodies were being dumped in mass graves like the 800 in the septic tank?i think not.and now that it's discovered the church is trying to spread the blame?

    They had no interest in what was happening the girls that they themselves abandoned at the door of the institution.
    None whatsoever.
    Once again your trying to superimpose the caring sharing affluent liberal society we enjoy today on the Ireland of the 1950s.
    That's ludicrous.
    Capital punishment for children was the order of the day in the school and in the home.
    Families of 9, 10 and more were the order of the day.
    There was widespread poverty and a very weak SW system.
    Do you honestly think people had time to be worrying about these "fallen" girls? Or their babies?
    If it wasn't so sad it would be funny how posters here imagine that there was any money for graves and funerals.
    The country was so poor that there was mass emigration but somehow you imagine people had time to worry about single mothers and money to pay undertakers.


  • #475
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    neonsofa wrote: »
    Even on a lower level, my own mother would still be of that thinking despite the fact she has "illegitimate" grandchildren (who could have ended up like these poor babies if we werent lucky enough to be of a different time) and witnessed firsthand what I went through myself as a young unwed mother. There would still be comments made about sin in our house even though she dotes on the resulting children of said sin. It's hypocritical in the extreme. A family member is gay and she would still refer to gay people as "them". It is very frustrating that even though she has seen firsthand how hurtful her thinking is, she sees nothing wrong with it.

    If you ever get time to check out on YouTube a sketch on Ellen DeGeneres show about "those" people at Thanksgiving it's very telling about how people like your mother and mine are not confined to Ireland,
    As well as being very funny.


  • #476
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    Calina wrote: »
    This does not mean everyone knew.

    It seems to me you wish to absolve the church of its role here.

    Oh the church are absolutely to blame. Greed,power, badness, bitterness. It's all there.
    But it's still not hard to find people who remember the 50s and even the 40s.
    They'll be happy enough to tell you the truth.
    Everyone knew the rules. Everyone knew what the consequences were.


  • #477
    neonsofa
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,476 ✭✭✭neonsofa


    infogiver wrote: »
    If you ever get time to check out on YouTube a sketch on Ellen DeGeneres show about "those" people at Thanksgiving it's very telling about how people like your mother and mine are not confined to Ireland,
    As well as being very funny.


    Oh I think I've seen it!
    I'm such a disappointment to her in some ways, still single raising a heathen child, supporting "the gays", being "career woman", not voting for FF....where did she go wrong! :pac:


  • #478
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    Tristian Mealy Crate wrote: »
    RCC had enough in its coffers to build this, up the road from Tuam, in 1958.

    84863.jpg

    Very much a matter of priorities and not resources if you ask me

    The parishioners paid for that. The diocese raised the money from the churchgoers. The same parishioners who dropped their pregnant daughters off at the Convent to be sorted out.


  • #479
    pq0n1ct4ve8zf5
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,070 ✭✭✭✭pq0n1ct4ve8zf5


    infogiver wrote: »
    The parishioners paid for that. The diocese raised the money from the churchgoers. The same parishioners who dropped their pregnant daughters off at the Convent to be sorted out.

    Yeah so like I said, priorities not resources.

    You can't look at what happened without it being in the context of the Church having the insane degree of control and influence that it had. I don't know why you have such a problem with that.


  • #480
    infogiver
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,505 ✭✭✭infogiver


    nhunter100 wrote: »
    Society being conditioned to feel shame for the presence of children being born out of wedlock does not explain the treatment those same children recieved from the religious orders.

    What about the treatment they received from their own families?


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  • #481
    nhunter100
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,990 ✭✭✭nhunter100


    infogiver wrote:
    The parishioners paid for that. The diocese raised the money from the churchgoers. The same parishioners who dropped their pregnant daughters off at the Convent to be sorted out.


    I wonder when they were dropping off their daughters did they realise their daughters would be abused, their grandchildren if unfortunate to die would be consigned to a septic tank. Somehow I doubt it.


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