Irish Mother and baby homes

[Colouringaddict]

Finally today a five year report has been released. 9,000 babies dying and being placed in a mass grave sparked the investigation.

Decades of suffering for thousands of families.

The church will be asked to contribute to the restorative justice for the victims. Despite the fact that there was no evidence of the church forcing the women into these homes ( and we all know that isn’t true).

The Irish P.M will also issue an apology.

It isn’t enough is it?

@Arnoldthecat... I think others have got there first.. yes anyone who was complicit in the failure to provide safety to those women and children should be prosecuted. They are guilty of misconduct and culpable manslaughter. These times were not ancient times, this was in my lifetime and my mothers.

I read this morning that some of the girls were as young as 11. Heartbreaking that those girls had been raped (probably from a much younger age and by men who should have been protecting them) and then forced to go through that ordeal. Just babies themselves.

I can’t imagine any body defending these crimes

And I agree. There should be criminal prosecutions and also truth about the illegal adoptions

@Arnoldthecat I find your post insensitive, disturbing and offensive and I've reported it accordingly.

The death rate for babies in the mother and baby homes was extremely high even taking into account higher infant mortality rates that existed at the time. Some of the bodies uncovered at Tuam belonged to toddlers and children as old as 8 or 9. When you look at the records and recorded year of death there seemed to be gaps of time when no deaths occurred (up to a year in one case) and other times children seemed to be dying at a rate of one a day. There may be a rational explanation for this but I’ve yet to hear it. I don’t think genocide is too strong a word. The report confirms that the State new about the problems for years.
Women and children were treated as commodities. If the ‘perfect’ babies couldn’t be rehomed for a sizeable donation, they were put to work or cast aside. A lady spoke this morning on Radio Ulster and she described that because she had a boil on her mouth she wasn’t adopted. She compared herself to a puppy passed over because she was defective. However it meant that when her mother married she was able to come back for her when she was about two.

There's a series on Al Jazeera called People and Power and they recently did 2 episodes about this. The homes received enough money to feed the babies but were withholding it so the babies were dying of malnourishment/starvation.

@Arnoldthecat have you read the report? Right at the outset it states "in the years before 1960 mother and baby homes did not save the lives of illegitimate children; in fact they appear to have significantly reduced their prospects of survival". Does that not sound a bit deliberate to you? If not murder then at the least manslaughter.

Also, the mortality rate for unmarried mothers and illegitimate children inside the homes was double that of the same demographic who were not in the homes. The great charitable support resulted in poorer outcomes than for those who were able to go it alone- not really what you would expect from somewhere that was dedicated to the accommodation of mothers and babies is it?

Yes, the death rates were far in excess of the death rates for infants and children in the general population.

Maybe they weren't "murdered" in the sense that someone put a pillow over their faces and suffocated them, but they were certainly unlawfully killed, by being denied enough food and timely medical care - actions which, were a company to carry them out (or fail to carry them out) would meet the threshold for corporate manslaughter.

The Catholic church needs to be held to account for this.

And as others have said, this wasn't years ago.

This was a period which overlaps my childhood we're talking about. At points the death rate in these institutions was up to 15% - even by the standards of the 60s and 70s, this would have been a national scandal had it been publicised at the time.

I can only assume you posted that rubbish to cause controversy.

Having read Arnold’s posts on other threads it’s clear that women just aren’t people to him.

It’s utterly horrific and shameful.

I’m Irish and was educated by nuns. As was my mother. My experience wasn’t bad but my mother was terrified of nuns even as an adult due to her experiences at school. Some of those nuns were total sadists. Send some of those sadists into positions where they feel morally superior to girls and women in mother and baby homes and you get horror.

The other thing worth mentioning is that even as late as the 1980s girls who got pregnant outside marriage were routinely described as having gotten themselves pregnant. Friends of my parents were disgusted that their son’s girlfriend had “gotten herself pregnant”. This was in 1981. They were further disgusted a few months later when my mother discovered I was on the pill and told them. My long term boyfriend and I got a lecture and I was told that they basically considered me a slut. They were also horrified that male friends of mine were routinely going into the Family Planning Clinic for condoms. My boyfriend pointed out that they were taking responsibility for their actions unlike some men. That went down like a lead balloon. Because it was always the woman’s fault.

Why is the report suggesting that there were up to 9,000 deaths when they acknowledge they've only reviewed 18 of c. 200 of these mother and baby homes? Surely that must be the tip of the iceberg.

I started reading the report yesterday and already I have found parts saying that there isn't evidence for or against physical abuse of women and children at these homes. Clearly the testimonies of hundreds of women is not considered enough.

@AmandaHoldensLips

I was educated in a convent. Those nuns were some fucked up bitches-from-hell. I am now a raging anti-theist.

My mother (Irish) was also educated in a convent and says exactly the same. I have some disturbing memories of a couple of the nuns who taught her being at my Aunt's wedding and the things they said to me about my mother and about me (to be clear my dad is not Irish and I was not christened Catholic so they had much to say about my future).

I confess I am not well enough informed about this latest revelation of atrocities coming from that direction so I'm about to go read up on it. It is a sad thing that this doesn't surprise me but just reading the posts I already know that reading it is something that will very much affect me emotionally - how could it not? I'll be following the links in this thread and am about to look up the book mentioned by MichelleofzeResistance if anyone else has recommendations on any other good sources of information it would be much appreciated.

*Wow, someone clearly cannot read the room.

Today is about our collective shame. Please leave your ‘whataboutery’ at the door.

Do we excuse the Nazis by saying they found some great medical cures?*

I have no interest in reading the room. I am expressing my views. Some other person said my post was insensitive and they have reported me. This is beyond belief. Are free expression of views not allowed on mumset or are we all supposed to chant the lyrics of the Amen corner?

For information i have PERSONAL experience of such terrible homes where a young male child who could not be cared for by his single mother, as entrusted to the church. They brought him up from a baby to a young boy. One day a kindly couple came along and adopted him and gave him a new life. He grew up to be a successful member of society.

Of course bad things happened and there were undesirable outcomes. It happens everywhere. It happens today,right now.

If someone may be guilty of criminal offences, let the authority bring charges.

Ask yourselves this, who are the real criminals? The men who got them pregnant and the families who abandoned them and cast them out. What relief would those women have had? would they have lived and died on the streets?

Oh the ignorance.

So because these women and girls had no other option, as the Irish state didn't bring in unmarried mothers allowance until the 1970s, the decision of the state to pay the Catholic Church to provide substandard, neglectful and frequently abusive "care" is acceptable?

It’s not undesirable outcomes. Stop saying that

It was the death of babies and children and the forced adoption of babies and children

It was girls as young as 11 who had been raped and sent to these places

Women and girls in childbirth being abused and left in pain

Undesirable outcomes.

As a person born to an unmarried mother in Ireland in the early 1980s I’m reassessing my (sometimes negative) view of my staunchly Catholic grandfather. It must not have been an easy thing to “allow” my mother to remain at home when so many were sent away. The findings are horrific.

There's no doubt that orphans and the children of unmarried mothers were not treated well (an understatement) elsewhere. But this is potentially 1000s if not tens of 1000s of dead babies and children. Plus the ones sold into adoption.

Having found Arnold's post on the Lisa Mongomery thread I'm really not going to bother engaging. Perhaps Arnold is an American plant? He seems to have the US Right Wing Catholic view about him (although even the Catholic Church is against the death penalty).

@Arnoldthecat

Ask yourselves this, who are the real criminals? The men who got them pregnant and the families who abandoned them and cast them out. What relief would those women have had? would they have lived and died on the streets?

No, dear. The Catholic church and the Irish establishment, and the attitudes they engendered, are the real criminals.