To make you aware of Ireland’s Mother and Baby Home Commission report

[VestaTilley]

Apologies if there’s been a thread on this already, but I wanted to raise awareness of this appalling crime against women and children.

I’m sure many people are aware, as I was, of the prevalence of Mother and Baby homes in Ireland throughout the twentieth century, and the roll the church and state played in colluding to hide away unmarried mothers and separate them from their children. But I had no idea about the obscenely high infant mortality rate in these homes, or the other awful acts that took place on the children there, such as vaccine trials.

In one home, Tuam, 796 babies and infants died between 1925 and 1961. They were then buried without ceremony in a former septic tank and forgotten about until a remarkable local historian Catherine Corless discovered the grave and made the story known, along with other local women including daughters of women who had had babies at the home.

The NY Times wrote a long read about it a few years ago www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/28/world/europe/tuam-ireland-babies-children.html which is utterly heartbreaking, but gives a voice to women and children who were so badly let down. I recommend it.

I know some survivors and their families are disappointed on the commission’s report. I’ve not read it and I don’t think it’s my place to comment, but I hope some Irish Mumsnetters may wish to do so.

There were fewer such homes in the UK, but they did exist; there was one in Glasgow that I’m aware of.

I just didn’t want such an important chapter in the lives of so many women and children not to be seen here. Mumsnet is a phenomenal women’s forum and a platform for women’s voices. I wanted these women and children’s voices to be heard. Please read the NY times piece, and remember the children born in the homes.

Thank you for sharing. I agree with the poster who says this is heartbreaking and rage inducing in equal measure.

I can’t imagine how these women felt having their babies taken from them never to be seen again, likewise for the children to be taken from their mothers. Not to mention the horrendous physical abuse and cruelty that was also carried out. These women and children were treated worse than prisoners of war.

We need to remember that this was carried out by people, actual people did this to other people; to women and to children and babies.

The fact they did it in the name of faith is abhorrent.

The women and girls were torn out of their communities to live a life of shame. Where are the fathers of these over 100,000 children? They got away scot free. They kept their jobs, status and families and the women were outcasts. If that's not patriarchy at work, l don't know what is?

*Actually patriarchy and misogyny.

My heart aches for these women and children. I read about the nuns ‘punishing’ the women for during labour by sitting on their chests as they’re pushing. Just beyond all comprehension.

If there was a hell they’d be burning in it.

I know, what the fuck is happening to the community when so many men are acted like they cared enough to persuade a woman to sleep with them (obviously some were raped or coerced), and look at the ensuing pregnancy and think, ‘well, she’ll be taken away and locked up in what amounts to a religious prison and they’ll probably sell my baby to an American family if it’s a boy or relegate it to a lifetime of institutions and servitude of its a girl, but HEIGH HO, I’M ALL RIGHT JACK’

‘Through the Narrow Gate’ is a really good read about a young girl in the sixties who was intensely religious and became a nun before the religious life was reformed. It can never justify but it does explain the batshit methods of breaking women to become good nuns, a system so strange and barbaric that it is not surprising that some then behaved so inhumanely when they were in power.

Heartbreaking.

My mother was 18, living in Ireland in the late 60s, when she became pregnant with me. She didn't tell anyone she was pregnant, got the boat to Wales, then travelled to London, pretending she had been offered a job. She sought help from the Catholic Church in London, and a catholic charity. After having me, she spent 3 months there trying to make it work, but ended up leaving me in London and going home to Ireland. There was no financial support from social services in those days, she would have had to rely on charities, it must have been extremely difficult.

I look back and wonder if she knew about these horrific mother and baby homes in Ireland and set out to ensure that wouldn't happen to her/me. I've always been puzzled though that, despite knowing how atrociously the catholic church had behaved, she still insisted that I was adopted by a catholic family and bought up with the faith.

There's a really good BBC Radio 4 podcast about this called "The Home Babies".

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06b5fzl/episodes/downloads

I overheard a conversation in a hospital ward in Galway in the 1990s. A young woman was giving her baby to a social worker. In her scared voice, she said 'My father doesn't know'. Fuck the patriarchy!

@snugglepuff

Shocking on so many levels. Hard to believe this was still happening 22 years ago

Yes, and given this, not everyone who was involved is dead. They should be tried and sent to prison

Film-wise, "The Magdalene sisters" and "Philomena" both deal with these.

There is also a play, "Eclipsed" by Patricia Burke Brogan, which I found very powerful. It is based on her personal observations.

However, I don't think any of these portray the full horror, or the scale on which it played out. So terribly sad!!!

Thank you everyone for your replies.

@BigSandyBalls2015 thank you so much sharing your story; I hope you were able to be reunited with your mother.

It’s all just so awful. Tragic, enraging, heartbreaking. The thought of babies and toddlers with nobody to comfort them because the mothers couldn’t nurse their own children, and then they’d be adopted away from them is just too much to bear.

I haven’t watched The Magdalene Sisters, although I know I must. I think the BBC did a drama about a year before with the same name which I did watch. It was harrowing, but very good. I must watch Philomena.

I hope the families get justice, I hope the babies who lost their lives are reburied with dignity. And I hope we never forget the women.

The greatest lesson I think we need to remember is to not allow ourselves to internalise misogyny. So much easier to ‘other’ other women when that happens.

It’s really too much to bear.

Hard to believe this was still happening 22 years ago

Harder still when seen in the context of the wider community tolerating it, but that's the power the church exerts over them
It's also the reason why, despite the occasional prosecution and the pretence that "lessons have been learned and things changed" that the chances of them submitting to real accountability is nil

And won't the minimisers within the church enjoy that

It is horrendous terribly shameful those poor women and children subjected to horrendous abuse disguised as a good faith religion, power hungry abusers using their cloak to manipulate and destroy.
I can't bring myself to watch the film Philomena the heartbreak is unbearable.

I know 2 women in this situations. The Fathers didn't get off scot-free there was great shame often these men loved their partners they couldn't stop their parents or church shipping of their DD.
One married her babies dad when she was released without her baby
It was all about the neighbours.
My Nanny arranged for her 16 y.o DD to go thankfully the babies father convinced his parents to allow them marry.
Young people didn't have a say against their parents wishes the parents were well brainwashed by then and done what the priest said.
Many times the boys parents would refuse the marriage blessing for the sin of sex before marriage.

@VestaTilley
Nearly all preventable deaths. Nearly all forgotten about and accepted as “one of those things”.

Ireland is becoming more and more progressive, but this “one of those things” still exist today. As foreigner in Ireland it frustrates me a lot but as I say it is changing for the better but it is slow...

The Fathers didn't get off scot-free there was great shame

Unfortunately shame is a transient thing, and easily manipulated by the evil

Personally I'd prefer to see jail time ...