Warning may be triggering. Dead babies and children found buried at a mother and baby home.

[JumpingDizzy]

https://news.sky.com/story/opening-the-pit-dig-for-remains-of-800-infants-at-former-mother-and-baby-home-in-ireland-begins-13384111?fbclid=IwY2xjawK8u-lleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHgUPrwYkbmXCChH4Ui1Exg74o4R_g_IkR_YxKjPmCMAcOcuChqMHQe6pYD33_aem_Vnyw43j-5ZxaIm4IE5cTsA

How horrific 😢 I've heard of cruelty by nuns but this is off the scale.

Because it’s a mass grave. You don’t just go in with a bulldozer. Some relatives want their relatives ’ bodies dug up, identified and made available to bury in the family plot. Others feel equally strongly that they should stay undisturbed and the ground be consecrated. Of course both sets of relatives can’t be accommodated, and of course both needed to be consulted. And of course it’s more than likely impossible to identify individual bone fragments, far less extract DNA, from tiny, long-buried human remains. But a lot of families understandably don’t want to hear that.

Healthy newborns were left to die of hypothermia in sluice rooms, hours after birth. Some of the babies and children on the Tuam registers were listed as dying of heart attacks and febrile convulsions. Inspectors recorded deaths from diseases caused by malnutrition. There used to be “bundles” of young children flown out of Shannon airport once the nuns realised how much money they could get for them.

Forensic anthropologists did a preliminary excavation of the site and they managed to get DNA from some of the bones. There have been a few family members reunited decades later with surviving siblings of the children in the mass grave.

That's horrific,I really don't know what else to say.

Mother and Baby Homes

Ard Mhuire, Dunboyne, Co Meath

Belmont (Flatlets), Belmont Ave, Dublin 4

Bessboro House, Blackrock, Cork

Bethany Home, originally Blackhall Place, Dublin 7 and from 1934 Orwell Road, Rathgar, Dublin 6

Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, Co. Galway

Denny House, Eglinton Rd, Dublin 4, originally Magdalen Home, 8 Lower Leeson St, Dublin 2

Kilrush, Cooraclare Rd, Co. Clare

Manor House, Castlepollard, Co Westmeath

Ms. Carr’s (Flatlets), 16 Northbrook Rd, Dublin 6

Regina Coeli Hostel, North Brunswick Street, Dublin 7

Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co Tipperary

St. Gerard’s, originally 39, Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1

St. Patrick’s, Navan Road, Dublin 7, originally known as Pelletstown; and subsequent transfer to Eglinton House, Eglinton Rd, Dublin 4

The Castle, Newtowncunningham, Co. Donegal

Historical and official sources may refer to these institutions by various names, and in some cases the Homes may have moved premises during their period of operation.

One of them is a friend of mine. She says it’s well-nigh impossibile.

It’s heartbreaking. 9,000 babies died - about 15% of all the children who were in the institutions - and a figure far higher than the national mortality rate at the time. It wasn’t only Tuam.

It wasn't only Magdalene laundries. People forget that children whose parent died could end up in industrial schools. My own mother and two of her sisters were put in Goldenbridge (Dublin) after their mother died giving birth to her seventh child in the 1930s.

She had a father, who kept the 10 and 11 year old girls to keep house for him but my mother (3) and her sisters 5 and 2 were all put in there until they were nearly 16. They were beaten by the nuns, fed poorly and suffered enormous emotional abuse. My mother barely spoke about it. I think she got out early because her older sisters were there to vouch for her.

She moved away to the UK when she was barely 17.

I tried to get information from the Sisters of Mercy and various institutions in Ireland, but they send you small amounts of information and I think try to deter you from pursuing it.

So what happened for the children/babies to die? Was there any mischief? Is it that the children died of natural causes but the nuns wouldn’t bury them properly as they were illegitimate?

All of it is so grim.

What happened is abhorrent.

You attributing it to “maybe jealousy as they had to live celibate, child-free lives?” is nothing more than perpetuating stereotypes about women without children.

This kind of stereotype – childless women are evil and jealous to the point of insanity – is incredibly harmful.

Wow. This post has immediately set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. I know a lot of this story from the other side. His mum was closely related to me and he is the same age as me. He has had contact with the family, although sadly his mum has not changed her mind, and I hope has had a fuller picture of what happened.

I know bits and pieces and when much older came to understand the story. It’s a lot more complex than reported.
None of the immediate family knew about the pregnancy, and I found out a lot more through doing AncestryDNA test and connecting up with David through the site. I knew exactly who he was ( well I thought I did there is a further twist which he did a another interview about) because he looks so much like my mother’s side of the family.

My DM was a midwife and it was not just the mother and baby homes where there was cruelty. As a young midwife she witnessed what could only be described as child abuse from the older midwives towards young unmarried mothers. They had a steady flow of underage mums including some as young as 12/13. The midwives would with hold pain relief and were very cold towards them. My mum found it unbearable and refused to be part of it, insisting that they were treated with respect and kindness.
With severely disabled/poorly babies it was also standard practice to put them in a cold room so that they would just pass away. My mum remembered nursing a baby with hydrocephalus before treatment had been developed. She stayed with the baby, with it in her arms for nearly 24 hrs after her shift had finished until it passed away. The mother had walked out of the hospital as soon as she could.

It wasn’t all like “Call the Midwife”.
With no scanning or tests it was always a shock when a baby was born with birth defects. Some of them were pretty horrific.

Sadly my mum died well before “Call the Midwife” was even written but she could have written the books from her perspective of working in a maternity hospital in a Northern town.

My own mother worked in a cotton mill in a Northern town from about 1960. She told me they would cover for other working women who were bleeding in toilet cubicles after backstreet abortions. The stigma of being an unmarried mother was the ultimate shame, no matter what faith people were baptised into.

Agree. What about the priests who abuse children? are they jealous they don’t have kids? Many famous murderers were parents Ted Bundy, The Wests to name a few

In the mid to late 80's I was in my first job working for a Catholic charity.As a non Catholic this was quite interesting and I've never forgotten a story in their newsletter.
It was written by a teenager who was a resident in one of the mother and baby homes.She basically described herself as having lost her way, stepped away from her religion due to bad influences.She described herself as having sinned by having sex.Her job in the home seemed to be scrubbing floors and she regarded this as a privilege whilst being watched over by our Lady. Hours of scrubbing floors on her knees but it gave her an opportunity to cleanse her soul.Her baby would go to a good Catholic couple and she now knew that she had to be the daughter she hadn't been to her parents.
It was the most haunting article, the girl was doing what she had to do to get through but the mindset was scary.
If I'd had a similar experience maybe I'd reason it through in the way that she did or had her views been manufactured for her by the church.Either way I'd love to know what happened to her.

I think this was common. My mum worked in a psychiatric (or ‘mental’ as known) hospital when I was growing up, in Herts. I used to occasionally go into the hospital with her. There was a lovely old lady who used to knit me gifts and things. She had been put in for having a baby out of wedlock and had remained there for life. She was lovely and very normal although probably had become somewhat institutionalised over time. This was in the 1990s.

This thread makes me want to wail and rage for the mistreatment of all of these women and children. RIP all of you ♥️

And religion can fuck right off. All religions of all types everywhere. So much you have to answer for. I trust no one who says they‘re “religious”.

It was endemic in Ireland and it was disgraceful.

I was not aware of Mother and Baby Homes growing up (born about '76 in Ireland) and had loving parents but I was told not to darken their door with a 'passenger', ie pregnant.

A cousin of girls I knew had a concealed pregnancy around the mid-nineties, the first her family knew of it was when she went into labour. Luckily, her parents helped raise the child.

My own mother-in-law was put in a Magdalene home at the age of sixteen for a couple of months. She didn't really 'do' anything, it was a large chaotic family and she was apparently 'a bit of a handful'. I don't know the details as we're not close. She did receive some compensation I believe.

What an awful lot of people, mainly women, went through was really shocking and many went to the UK.

I also volunteered and disagree profoundly.

You wouldn't care to hint which town your mother worked in, would you? Before I was born, my mother's first child had hydrocephalus and died. She wasn't allowed to see him, was told "You're young, go away and have a healthy baby." Being barely 20, she did as they said.

I would like to think that someone, somewhere, held my brother as he died.

My mum worked in Huddersfield, I no longer have any connection with the area. It would have been in the early 1960s. And yes she was criticised but stuck to her guns and made sure that the baby was cradled until it passed away. A lot of the midwives found it too difficult , but my mum always maintained that every baby should be cuddled no matter how awful their defect was.

Indeed. And people need to get over the idea as nuns, or indeed clergy, as monsters separate from the rest of society. Their families usually sent girls and women to the laundries, or it was done with their approval, and the biggest businesses, hotels, institutions etc in every town and city sent their linen to the laundries. They weren’t secret. Neither were they specific to Ireland or were solely Catholic foundations. But the horrifying thing was that everyone knew.

Do you mean that you felt the care provided was sufficient? My friend was a UK registered nurse. She was so horrified when she came home. Much later in life she has helped to establish a children's home in Africa, driven by her faith and her belief that children should be supported. I haven't seen her much recently, and am not sure I necessarily agree with her. But my causes are differently focused.

Agree.

This is true!

What consequences for those priests that have died? None!

Maybe exhume them and place in unconsecrated land? The ultimate shame for them.