Irish Mother and baby homes

Peter Mullan who directed a film about the laundries had asked a nun how these terrible things could happen and she answered “ an absence of doubt”.
Their beliefs became arrogance and that lead to evil imho.

"They were called the Sisters of Mercy but there was nothing merciful about them"

That was my Granny.

My Aunt simply left her Catholic school at aged 14 and bpneber set foot in a church again until her funeral. She remained a Catholic all her life but observed her faith alone .

A shame she never lived to meet my Catholic Priest friend who despite being a priest has little positive to say about the institution of the church. He says they have a lot to be ashamed of.

It is very moving

Have a look on YouTube for a song by Joni Mitchell called The Magdalene Laundries, it’s from 1994

**She was described by one bishop as 'a troublesome spinster who thought she knew everything about what was best for babies'"

Clearly, the Bishop (a bachelor!!!) knew more about what was best for babies than anyone else.

"Irish society took a long time to listen to those who shouted stop about the Mother and Baby Homes. While that story is not yet over, perhaps we also could ask ourselves what practices that today are seen as not only acceptable but essential, will be looked back on with horror tomorrow?"

Indeed

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/breda-o-brien-it-took-almost-100-years-to-hear-alice-litster-shouting-stop-1.4459381?mode=amp
Interesting article in today's Irish Times

My grandmother was raised somewhere like this. She had huge attachment issues and problems with alcohol.

So did my Dad.

We are nc.

There but for the grace of God.

My great grandmother had my grandmother in 1944 as an unwed mother. But as a wealthy woman living in England she went to 'help a friend in London' for 6 months.

She visited the friend many times in the following 5 years before coming home with her 'adopted war orphan' I sure her parents knew, considering my grandmother was the spit of her mother but they never mentioned it.

She was just lucky to have money and supportive friends and to live in England.

When my grandmother fell pregnant unmarried aged 19 in the 60s god help anyone who told my great grandmother she should be ashamed of her daughter!

The report is heart breaking and it should be plastered all over the news, people need to know what happened to these poor women and their babies

Martina Devlin. On radio Scotland now.

State society and religion to blame

Their fathers and brothers threw them out. Their mothers seemed powerless

Women were called sluts and sinners

Forced adoptions. Official documents doctored

A republic of shame

The babies fathers didn’t have to hide in the shadows. After all what did it have to do with them

It was a very good report from her

@Handsoffstrikesagain I went to secondary in 1978 so 77/78.

I don't know whether the child would tell the parents, I didn't when I got the ruler.

I think my parents would have complained (I didn't notice my class had left the dining room, I was talking to another child, once we realised they had gone we got up to leave and both got the ruler).

But I would have still spent 9am to 3 pm in her company and I'm sure she would have found a legitimate reason to punish me.

She would take away chairs and make people kneel on the floor to work, banned playtime and we often had weeks of 'just maths and English' to punish the class for, well, whatever.

Sorry I don't mean to derail this from the much more serious abuse Irish women and girls endured.

i still can’t quite get my head around the terrible fear Irish mothers in particular (like mine) had/have about the morality of their daughters

I think it would have been society - so just something you absorbed from everything around you. I am in my late 60s but when I was at secondary school (in Scotland, not Ireland) girls were common, slappers etc if they dressed with, say tight fitting school blouses or too much makeup. (Though things did change quite quickly)
If they did get pregnant it was them who was ostracised. Somehow the men had nothing to do with it?? Babies were also brought up by their Grandmothers as if their own so no one knew.
My family weren't Catholic but I remember a friend I'd met when pubbing having to go away to have a baby (to have it adopted) probably aged 18. I was shocked as we were quite irreligious but she seemed quite accepting of it - I can only presume she was Catholic. And no talk of an abortion.

My Irish Catholic mother was educated by nuns. All she would really say about them was that the Sisters of Mercy had no mercy.

I went to two schools run by TSOM, I agree.

At junior school my teacher (nun) decided one boy had drawn in a text book, he wouldn't admit it so every day she asked him and then he was given the ruler for not admitting it. In front of the class obviously.

Eventually the boy who had drawn in the book admitted it.

It was spun as the first boy should 'offer up his suffering as a prayer' so it was a good thing he's been repeatedly punished for something he didn't do.

And this was in England where there wasn't quite as much reverence,

My first post on this thread was about my dad and his upbringing im a convent. His best friend (who later became my "uncle" and godfather) was taught by the christian brothers. Both kindred spirits lucky not to be scarred for life by their experiences. I recall my uncle saying he'd experienced enough abuse to put more than one of his teachers in prison. (Apologies for derailing, just mulling a few things over)

Lighthousekeeper72 MilkMoon all valid points but i still can’t quite get my head around the terrible fear Irish mothers in particular (like mine) had/have about the morality of their daughters. Did the priests instill this in that generation? Or was it the nuns on the priests behalf?

I’m glad the power of the Catholic church has dismissed in Ireland but fear the targets are still women who don’t worship the power of the almighty penis bearers

I agree with a pp that it wasn't just the church and the state that were responsible for this, people handed their daughters over to these hell holes rather than living with the so called shame. I can't get my head around this still going on in the 90s though. I had my first baby in 1990 and although i was married, lots of single women i knew had babies and no one batted an eyelid. There was a certain amount of sneering about unmarried mums claiming benefits, but it wasn't a moral or religious thing at all. I lived in Dublin, so can only assume that it happened in more rural areas. Shocking and very, very, sad.

From what limited knowledge I have, Christian Brothers werent exactly known for being christian in their attitude towards their pupils either?

Wow - 😢

Making women pay the price for men's morality has so many knock on effects.

I read Boy George's mum's memoir, she was brought up in a poor Catholic family in Dublin. Her first boyfriend 'ruined' her by getting her pregnant then abandoning her despite his promises. Her family (despite having other issues ie domestic violence) actually stood by her and allowed her to keep her baby.

When she moved to London and met Jerry O'Dowd (Boy George's father) he was brutally violent to her even before they married, beating her severely on a number of occasions. She married him because by becoming a wife, she became an 'honest woman' and she never left him, despite a lifetime of abuse at his hands. She remained grateful that he had willingly married a fallen woman.

Her family had no sympathy at all, and told her she'd made her bed and had to lie in it.

So true @MarDhea