Mother Child Homes Discussion ###DO NOT POST WITHOUT READING 1st POST###

Deleted User wrote: »

The "vigil" in Galway was organised by a pro choice group, who have hijacked these poor innocents deaths to further their own agenda. SHAME on them.

I was at the vigil. I had no idea who was "organising" it but a few people said a few words that I mostly agreed with and there were a few songs which I mostly liked. It was that simple. "hijack" and "agenda" did not enter my mind.

nowanathiest wrote: »

I am a former resident of a Mother & Baby home and I can assure you that my point is entirely valid. I speak from direct experience of one of these institutions.

My baby was forcibly adopted in 1980 and I am now faced with the prospect of possibly having to trace her to see if she was indeed adopted or lies in one of the home graves around Ireland.

When I pass from this world, I can assure you that no symbol or trace of that religious body will be on show at my funeral.

A real live one of "them" - would you have guessed it? not quite the same as speculating ridicuously about whether the bodies are in the tank, out of the tank or somewhere else is it? You should be ashamed of yourselves and your
ignorance.

I hope you find your child. The whole way the press has handled this tragedy has been shame full.To me there has been no sensitivity shown to the surviving families of these dead children. I can't imagine how you felt when you heard "dumped in a septic tank" even though that was 30 years before your baby was born.

There couldn't have been a shortage of food for these homes, they farmed own livestock and grew their own vegetables. Babies need the breast of their mother

Deleted User wrote: »

Looking back into my own family history between 1920 and 1930. On my fathers side, he lost 2 siblings at an early age, one unexplained, one to measles. On my mothers side, she lost one sibling to whooping cough. These were all farmers and would have been fairly well educated for the time. It was not unusual for babies to die young in any family. I have a family tree of my mothers side, going back to the early 1800's and at least 2 children died in every family as infants. I have no idea of where my fathers siblings were buried, but my mothers sisters grave was unmarked - the parents were buried there in the 1960's - until 2 years ago. The fact that so many died in one place could well be down to infectious diseases.

I'm just trying to throw a logical light on what might have happened.

Infant mortality was at a much higher rate between the 1920s and 1960s than it is today. But would you shine your logical light on the figures that show that infant mortality in the mother and baby homes was 3-4 times higher than outside the homes; homes that were paid by the State to care for the children?

If you want to blame infectious diseases, the causes of death listed on the certificates from Tuam won't back you up to the amount of 3/4 times the national average, and anyway the children were not in quarantine from the rest of the population - through school attendance and nuns/staff coming and going, germs and viruses could easily scale the convent walls.

I think ye are both missing the point. The mortality rate in the homes was between 30% and 50% and was also up to 3-4 times the national average at that time.

There may be reasons for this but I will wait for the inquiry to produce those.

Spring Onion wrote: »

Sorry Muise, I already see you made this point.

It's a point I hope will be made by many.

mrsbyrne wrote: »

Yes but a lot of posters appear to be totally incapable of grasping the fact that social conditions in general in the first half of the last century and even into the second half were appaling in comparison to now, but of course completely the norm at the time.

Indeed. The fact that there was a problem was known and officially reported on at the time. From 1923, The Reports of the Registrar General (the equivalent of the CSO Vital Statistics reports) even had a section that specifically tracked "Deaths of illegitimate infants". For example

http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/releasespublications/documents/birthsdm/archivedreports/P-VS,1923.pdf

Deaths of illegitimate infants under one year of age registered in Saorstat Eireann during the year 1923 was 559 the resulting mortality rate is 344 per 1,000 births for both sexes <...> These rates must be regarded as excessive. <...> the illegitimate infant mortality as derived from the records for 1923 is about 6 times the mortality among legitimate infants, <...> at least one out of every 3 illegitimate infants born alive in 1923 died before the completion of their first year of life.

In England and Wales in 1923, the illegitimate infant death rate was about one death to every 8 <..> about twice that for legitimate infants<..>

The plain nature of this public analysis - which included the observation that the bulk of deaths were in institutions - debunks the idea that this was a hidden problem. It was officially recognised that there was a problem, and that while other countries had similar probems, ours was much worse.

The fact that so many of the deaths were due to infectious disease puts a quite different spin on why children in institutions were included in drug trials.

Life was quite harsh, back then. But the retrospective angst is being overdone.

Another aspect of the issue I haven't seen commented on is that the number of births outside wedlock increased significantly after independence, despite a fall in the total number of births. That's all recorded in the Reports of the Registrar General - which, as I said, are available online at the CSO website. Just vary the year on the .pdf file I've linked, and they are there for everyone to see.

Holy Catholic Ireland, apparently, wasn't so Holy.

Spring Onion wrote: »

I think ye are both missing the point. The mortality rate in the homes was between 30% and 50% and was also up to 3-4 times the national average at that time.

There may be reasons for this but I will wait for the inquiry to produce those.

But you have already decided what those reasons are and if the enquiry report doesn't meet with your preconceived conclusions ( which are based on a combination of what you read in the papers and your own predujices) your going to cry whitewash.

Spring Onion wrote: »

And good morning to you too Mrs Byrne

And how pleasant it is too spring onion. I've just had a lovely stroll home from mass. What about yourself?

RobertKK wrote: »

It has been reported the place was overcrowded - upto 200 babies, 100 mothers. Reports in the Mail on Sunday, destitute families and itinerants were given refuge in the same place.

Sanitation was poor back then, no running water or electricity, so very basic for a place with a lot of people, it was bound to be bad for health.

No sanitation, running water or electricity in a home designed and funded to look after people? But since it was people the church and state saw as worthless, it's alright that they didn't bother looking after them is it?

I think what you're looking at is a situation not unlike what you'd see in the caste system in India.

These people were the lowest caste and were just treated like pond scum by aspects of the nuns and society.

It's also got a lot in common with so called 'honour crimes' that we see in other cultures.

When you dehumanise someone as a 'sinner' and put them into a situation of powerlessness where they're being controlled by people who hold incredibly dogmatic beliefs about what this particular sin is, really terrible things can happen.

This is what happens in abusive prisons, detention centres etc etc all throughout human history.

micosoft wrote: »

I don't think people realise how harsh the reality of life was in Ireland pre 1970's. That said, I don't think they realise how awful life was in a lot of other countries.

1947 there was a severe food shortages in Ireland leading to malnutrition everywhere and starvation in some places (the border counties). My father who came from a wealthy farming background remembers the Dubs coming down to the country to buy rabbits they had lamped - and they were desperate for food.

As for the higher rate of child mortality in the homes - there is probably a paper to be written on it from a historical viewpoint but not another tribunal. There are plenty of reasons for a higher mortality rate from underreporting in the general populace (where the family may have buried without reporting), the fact they were in an institution meaning contagious disease spread more easily etc. A reasonable approach would be to compare with other mother and baby homes in the UK and other parts of Europe. If mortality was worse then these an investigation would be merited.

What little truth is getting out around the mother of child (the bulk being hysterical and made up) needs to be seen in context of the times.

Would you call the direct testimonies from women incarcerated in these "homes" hysterical and made up? Was the Taoiseach exaggerating when he apologised to the surviving women for the treatment they endured?We have been hearing these reports for over 20 years now, so the presentation of the horror story of unmarked burials in/beside a disused septic tank is actually a blip on the otherwise reasonable signal:noise ratio.