Tuam - beyond comprehension

[MrsDustyBusty]

So it seems like the initial investigation into the graves (for want of a better word) in Tuam is even more horrific than had been imagined.

www.rte.ie/news/2017/0303/856914-tuam-mother-baby/

Poor, poor women. Poor, poor babies.

I note from that article that the cause of death was "debility from birth" in 24% of cases. I realise that the term was in use until the 50s or so but still it essentially means that a quarter of the deaths didn't even have a concrete medical reason.

My family were vilified from the altar when it got out that my sister was pregnant at 15, she had her baby in the weeks between the Anne Lovett (same age as her too) and Kerry Babies cases in 1984 and kept him and was regularly subjected to nasty comments from the old biddies, harassment from married men and my nephew was regularly shamed in school by the lay teachers from the late 80's right through the 90's and early 00's because of it.

Terry Prone's email on behalf of the Bons is disgraceful and callous but what can you expect from a pig but a grunt.

Its all so sad. We are so lucky today that we're not under the thumb of the Church.
An aunt of mine lost three babies within days of birth - she said they were taken away quickly and her husband buried them on their farm. Her husband would take baby and bury at night - to lose a baby like that was considered shameful and that the body should be hidden away asap. My aunt is in her late sixties. She says it haunted her all her life that she wasn't there for burials. They never put up any sort of markers on graves - not the done thing apparently. This was in rural Ireland.
My father (mid sixties) had a younger sibling who died when he was a few weeks old. The baby was buried in a graveyard - but not in a marked grave. And none of the family (except his father) were there - in recent years they (the siblings) put up a plaque on the wall of graveyard.

My friend lost a baby last year - i can't possibly imagine the baby being taken away and buried in a shameful manner. There must have been so many traumatised mothers.

My father (mid sixties) had a younger sibling who died when he was a few weeks old. The baby was buried in a graveyard - but not in a marked grave.

Ah yes, because only good little Christians who had been baptised were worthy of a proper grave and burial.

I have heard stories from my grandmother's generation, who would have given birth at home in the 1920s - 40s, about midwives fibbing that a stillborn baby had been born alive and survived for a couple of minutes. That was long enough to have carried out an emergency baptism, which allowed the family to bury the baby in a churchyard with a funeral. I think certain midwives would do it whenever they could, if the condition of the baby made it plausible. It's desperately sad, but I'm glad compassion sometimes won out over church dogma. I assume the fibbing came to an end when hospital births became more of the norm in the 50s onwards.

These women were in rural areas in the midlands and west, but didn't mention stillbirth or newborn deaths as a source of shame, just sadness. Perhaps different parts of the country had their own norms about it.

It's beyond comprehension. I cannot even articulate properly how I feel about it. Those little children, those poor girls...words just fail me.

As shocking and shameful as it is nothing will be done about it. If the remains were found on non-religious institution grounds the area would have been sealed off and a criminal investigation set up.

Would they? I'm not sure. It's not the only mass grave in the area, not by a long way. And I don't think anyone is saying any of the babies were murdered, and it's very hard to prove benign neglect or ignorance of the communication of disease 50/60 years later when everyone is dead.

The journo on the news last night was convinced this is not an isolated case. There were many more of these horrible places.
Once again the shield of religion allows this to happen and never to be questioned.

Those utter fuckers. Heartless bastards. This is just awful but to be honest it doesn't feel that surprising to me. I don't think anything that relates to the how this association treated the people of this country can surprise me anymore.

How this fucking organisation still exists and continues to have a say in education or even attempts to have an opinion on women's rights is completely beyond me.

Completely agree.
And they never sort it out. Ever.

Listening to Joe Duffy Show, a man said he contacted politicians to inform them of his suspicions. He was either born in the Tuam home or had siblings there.
He did not even get a reply from some of these politicians but they will be crying crocodile tears now.
Name and shame I say!

www.thejournal.ie/catherine-corless-tuam-mother-and-baby-home-3268501-Mar2017/?utm_source=shortlink

The picture of the little children in this article is heartbreaking.
Cannot even begin to imagine the horrible miserable existence they had.

You know something I always have thought that we treat our dead with dignity. The thought of little children, first of all, dying from what were most probably preventable conditions, and then the ultimate disrespect of where and how the bodies were concealed ( I can't describe it any other way) makes me sick. Beyond words.

I was shocked to read an article a while back that said most of the adoptions were illegal. Also shocking to read that babies were taken from girls/women without the birth mothers being allowed to see their babies and then the birth mothers told their babies had died when the actual reality was that the babies were registered as the birth children of other couples as there was also a stigma on women not able to have children, infertility was always down to women never the men. God only knows how many people there are that haven't a clue they aren't their parents natural children and were stolen and sold.

I think it's important to remember that it's not just the Bon Secours nuns to blame here. Wider Irish society at the time bears a large portion of the blame for its attitudes towards unmarried mothers.

This thread from one of the historians who has been researching Tuam and other mother-and-baby homes makes for some chilling reading. Lots of cases of doctors, councillors, even a priest at one point(!) trying to highlight illegal and inhumane practises in how county boards coerced women into these homes without consent and how the high infant mortality rate was brushed under the carpet.

Of course the terrible attitude towards unmarried mothers was encouraged by the church, but plenty of lay people seemed only too eager to demonise women who transgressed moral ideals of the time. Sanctimonious bastards.

And our own grandparents and great-grandparents were probably amongst them.

The children were basically sold, as far as I can gather. Some huge money changed hands for the ones sent to America.

I just cannot even imagine the misery those little mites endured, and their poor mothers, some of them probably very young girls.

If this were a book or a film, it would seem incredible. Sadly it is and was so many people's real lives. Some of those who survived would be still living, in Ireland, and elsewhere, and must find all of this incredibly painful.

I don't believe justice will be served, and it's too late for so many of them. Was it on here or elsewhere I read that when the nuns were leaving Tuam, presumably selling the land, the bodies of the deceased nuns were exhumed and moved.

And all the while, somebody knew that the bodies of all those little children were lying in a sewer. Evil beyond comprehension.

Catherine Corless deserves immense credit for what she has helped to bring to light.

Yes the nuns were exhumed and moved.

The so called religious only saw babies as commodities to be sold and the ones that weren't "suitable" to see were used as slave labour or used as guinea pigs for medical trials.

As I'm typing this I'm watching reports of this on tv. They're saying Tuam is only the tip of the iceberg and that there are mass graves in the grounds of the other nursing homes.

I don't for one minute expect there will be justice.

I was just thinking the same honey, this surely cannot have been the only place it happened.

No indeed, no justice. And the order involved is busy protecting itself.

Nuns, priests, the State, and the people who worked in the Mother and Baby homes are all to blame for the horrific treatment of the mothers and children.
But what about the men - the fathers of the babies.
I know some of the children would have been the result of rape.
But not all.
My aunt ( in law) told me her mother was offered a fiver when she told her boyfriend she was pregnant back in the early sixties.
She never saw him again.

Just listening to the lunchtime news and between that US Catholic group saying it's 'fake news' and the Catholic Priests assiciation saying 'others are also to blame' it really brings home how these so called Christians miss the point. Knowing even one child was treated this way should have them hanging their heads in shame.
My mother gave birth to a child in Bessborough in Cork before going on to have us and I honestly believe they way she was treated impacted her mental health beyond repair.

Minnie was she treated badly or was it what she witnessed ?
Aunt's mother in law was treated well but believes that was because she was related to a priest.
Apparently he was kind to her.
Which was unusual considering how so many of the clergy and nuns were treating unmarried pregnant girls at the time - sinners and shame.

Tbh I think she was mentally vulnerable, father f#cked off, family dropped her off, baby taken away immediately after birth, she wasnt even sure if baby had been a boy or girl for years, very confused, there was definately mistreatment but could never get the extent, like she blamed herself. Nowhere as bad as some but definately not humane.
Her child, my half sister did find her but it didnt go well. My mother has problems, alcohol etc and as soon as she (sis) found her father he was all open arms etc.

Sorry just to add, my mothers story is one of the reasons I truly feel more than the clergy were to blame. Fathers walking away, parents dumping their daughters, even stories on the radio today where the local td turned up with the priest to take one girl away. No way were people totally in the dark about what was happening in those homes.

So sorry Minnie. Your poor mam.

I agree, it was wider society also. People were so in thrall / in the grip of the church...it was a different era.
I do wonder too if the parents involved, ever regretted placing their daughters there.

I'm heartbroken about this, and feel as if I want to do something - I know it's too late for those who are gone...but if there was some way that their suffering could be acknowledged, their existence remembered and honoured...

There was a lady on the news this evening speaking about what would be involved in DNA testing etc. I hope that it would achieve something for those when are seeking answers. I know it's too little too late for many.

...those who...