796 children buried in Septic Tank in Galway - ### Mod Warning in 1st Post

Local historian Catherine Corless has to be given a lot of credit here for actually going and rooting through all the documentation that's brought this to light.

It's a very sad situation when you think about it. Probably the first person to have actually given some thought and respect to those kids is an investigator who several generations younger than them.

I think if anything it shows that we all need to start poking around for facts about that very grim era of Irish social history and getting to the bottom of all of these things.

It also shows that individual researchers and small groups can unearth a lot of facts that have been just swept under the carpet for decades.

Start asking questions!

There's been too much waiting on the state to initiate enquires and stuff. People need to start poking under rocks and shaking skeletons out of local closets.

If there are groups out there doing research, maybe we should all volunteer a few hours to even just sort through old records. A bit of crowd sourcing could find out a hell of a lot.

A lot of this stuff involves meticulous analysis of public records. With a bit of organisation it's something we could do a hell of a lot faster by just sharing the workload around with an open source community. People do it for genealogy already, this has a far more urgent purpose!

If there are any historians reading this - have a chat with some of the IT departments in the universities about open data and public data analysis. There's a lot can be done quite effectively and cheaply, particularly if there's a pool of people willing to put a few hours into it.

Resonator75 wrote: »

Way to go RTE.

2 full minutes of coverage on the main evening news about premeditated construction of mass graves for at least 800 childeren.

Now 10 mins on how brave Noonan is and how he will give us a great budget.

God Im angry.

I can't believe it either. This is quantum leaps above anything that has happened to this point, and how many other nuns and convents/schools had this idea with the septic tank disposal and secret starvation?

You could multiply that 796 a few times over to get the full number, that has yet to be unearthed.

They ought to be at least a whole hour dedicated to this story.

I'm a hard to stun man, but **** me, when I read this thread title, I had step up and walk way for a second or two before coming back to type this post

That was fast carbon dating to find out they were famine era ....

denhaagenite wrote: »

The petition hasn't even hit 5000 signatures yet, even though this thread has had 321 replies and over 13,000 views. Sign and share folks!!

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Frances_Fitzgerald_Irish_Minister_for_Justice_and_Equality_A_full_Gardai_investigation_into_the_mass_grave_in_Tuam_Co_Ga/

5065 now

RobertKK wrote: »

It was the parents putting their children up for adoption...the families in these cases are getting a nice free ride.

Parents? There was only the mother and she wasnt given a choice.

InTheTrees wrote: »

I was just reading a story about how no records could be found on the church putting up disabled kids for adoption.

So what happened to the disabled kids?

It's a good question.
I know a lot of people who were quite mildly disabled in those days ended up spending very long periods of time 'out of sight, out of mind' in institutions too.

i.e. people with physical disabilities and what would be classified these days as relatively minor learning difficulties.

The mental institutions here were absolutely overflowing with people who absolutely did not need to be there. We actually incarcerated more people in institutions per capita than any other country on earth with records at the time. More than even the USSR which had a horrendous reputation for that.

Mary Raferty did a documentary called Behind the Walls which shows just how the institutions were used for social control and convenience in those days, rather than as any kind of an actual mental health service.

It's worth a watch, but be prepared to feel rather angry and depressed afterwards!

Mary Rafferty (who sadly died a few years ago at only 51 years old) did an amazing amount of investigative journalism on these issues over the years. She really deserves a hell of a lot of credit for holding a mirror up to this society and showing it just how screwed up and ugly it had become.

If you didn't fit in it was the emigrant boat or an institution / home of some sort to be 'looked after'...

It was a cold, highly conformist, very authoritarian society that did not really tolerate anyone stepping outside lines painted down by the Catholic Church and supported strongly by a 'holier than thou' conservative lobby that seemed to have complete control of politics and public debate. They were trying to create a completely artificial, fake, 'perfect' society using social engineering methods. That's pretty much what you see if you analyse it a bit.

It has an awful lot in common with what happened in other parts of Northern Europe with eugenics and with Spain under Franco which actually has a remarkable number of parallels, other than we managed to do it within the context of a democracy. Spain's coming to terms with revelations of up to 300,000 forced adoptions where parents were told their kids were dead because they were 'unsuitable' families....

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15335899

RobertKK wrote: »

An immaculate conception? There was a father somewhere.

Born out of wedlock. Most of these fathers never took any responsibility I'd say.

RobertKK wrote: »

When were they first carbon testing done? Since they have had bones for at least two decades now.

Probably on the famine remains on another site as they seem to be getting confused with the 2 sites.

RobertKK wrote: »

An immaculate conception? There was a father somewhere.

Do you think these women went to these places voluntarily?

SpaceTime wrote: »

Local historian Catherine Corless has to be given a lot of credit here for actually going and rooting through all the documentation that's brought this to light.

It's a very sad situation when you think about it. Probably the first person to have actually given some thought and respect to those kids is an investigator who several generations younger than them.

SpaceTime I clipped this from the Irish Central article. Catherine Corless actually went to school with some of these children -

Catherine Corless, the local historian and genealogist, remembers the Home Babies well. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” Corless tells IrishCentral. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them.

“They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies. That was the message we got in our young years,” Corless recalls.

Now a dedicated historian of the site, as a schoolgirl Corless recalls watching an older friend wrap a tiny stone inside a bright candy wrapper and present it as a gift to one of them.

“When the child opened it she saw she’d been fooled,” Corless says. “Of course I copied her later and I tried to play the joke on another little Home girl. I thought it was funny at the time.”

But later – years later – Corless realized that the children she taunted had nobody. “Years after I asked myself what did I do to that poor little girl that never saw a sweet? That has stuck with me all my life. A part of me wants to make up to them.”