796 Irish babies in a septic tank

[Latrade]

This whole sordid mess was of course a product of a suffocating confessional society. But don't just blame the Pope of Rome and his clergy. Blame De Valera, blame Padraic Pearse, blame the vast majority of the citizenry who wallowed in this stifling culture. Scapegoating the nuns and asking why they didn't die of malnutrition is a grotesque cop out.

I agree perspective is needed, but that perspective needs to include all aspects of how these institutions were run and what went on. Certainly the conditions and how they arose and the culture that let them arise is one issue, but so is the culture of those who run the place that felt it ok to place/dump dead children into a spetic tank that was in use without any record of death or burial.

The other issue that is harder to ignore though is the focus here on this being an Irish problem. It isn't. And that sort of casts some doubt on where ire should be directed. Without doubt the state was complacent in all the issues, but then it's hard to understand why there would be similar issues in the Nun run institutions in Australia and America. I didn't know the influence of the Irish state extended quite so far and also countries not noted for their overwhelming Catholic influence on state affairs.

Or is the common factor Irish Catholic Institutions?

The "placing" of babies in unmarked, undocumented graves is indicative of several things and this does include the tacit acceptance by the state and society. But it is indicative of a greater influence and culture across all church run insitutions and not just here, everywhere they operated.

Whether we look to blame the Pope or De Valera is up to individuals, but De Valera didn't exploit the Vatican's status as a separate state to remove all documentation on abuse and conditions in instutions immediately prior to the various inquiries in diplomatic pouches so that they couldn't be seized.

I'd be inclined to apportion blame across all those involved, tacit or direct if it were just an Irish problem. Every where there was an institution, there was abuse.

Look to the common denominator in that fact. It isn't the Irish State or the Irish people.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Latrade, the whole truth of this will be very difficult to disentangle and possibly will not be an objective absolute but rather open to various subjective assessments.

You know the old statistics rubric - "just because most people die in bed does not mean that bed is a dangerous place".

Similarly, just because these misfortunate rejected members of society finish up in the care of religious institutions does not necessarily mean that religious institutions are responsible for their misfortune or their rejection.

 

[The_Banker]

It absolutely has - OP herself compares what happened to Bosnia etc. Betsy Og (normally sensible) hopes the nuns rot in hell. About 10 stories in the Sindo from Emer O'Kelly to Gene Kerrigan outdoing themselves in demonization of the nuns. We have been easily provoked by a British newspaper raking up in hysterical terms what has actually been publicly known, even discussed in Dail Eireann, for at least 80 years. At last a sign of someone breaking ranks - Ho Chi Quinn is condemning the international hysteria. He, like the nuns, welcomes an enquiry. And I expect that just as for Bethany we will get a much more contextualised interpretation of these events.

A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the "County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance." And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money.

Purple describes the State as outsourcing this problem of society. Good analogy. How many takers would there have been at £1 per week? The nuns were the only takers in town, and now we damn them to rot in hell for taking on the job.

This whole sordid mess was of course a product of a suffocating confessional society. But don't just blame the Pope of Rome and his clergy. Blame De Valera, blame Padraic Pearse, blame the vast majority of the citizenry who wallowed in this stifling culture. Scapegoating the nuns and asking why they didn't die of malnutrition is a grotesque cop out.

The state certainly outsourced the problem and society as a whole must take its fair share of the blame.
I would definately hold De Valera and all leaders in the country to account as they effectivily over saw the the outsourcing. While Padraic Pearse can be blamed for many things, I wouldnt hold him to account on this one as he was shot in 1916 before the Free State came into being.

With regards the payment the religious institutions recieved for looking after children. There have been various figures bandied about. Some reports are saying £1 a week per child where as other reports are saying it was the equivilent of the average industrial wage per year.
Either way, an inquiry will get to the bottom of this. I have heard/read that different institutions tendered for the ability to set up mother and child homes. Again, an inquiry will get to the bottom of this.
I would hope that any inquiry would be chaired from someone outside the state....
It was known that medical trials were carried out on children in these institutions back in 2000 but there was no inquiry as an objection was raised by religious orders because they felt the result was already pre ordained as it was part of the "child abuse investigation" and they subsequently won the high court action. It died there.
Did religious get paid for allowing trials take place on the children under their care?

In past investigations while the religious institutions "welcomed" it they were very slow to offer data/files or full cooperation once the inquiry was under way.
They are not slow to hire public relations companies to get their side of the story across.

A point above highlighted that 97% of children born outside wedlock were put up for adoption.
I wonder did those who never entered an institution get money for putting their child up for adoption?
Or the money the nuns recieved from Americans for adopting children.... Did any of that cash filter down to the mother of the child?

I think it is a fair question ask how many nuns died of malnutrition... Considering Ireland suffered more in the 1930s during the Great Depression than other countries due to the added effects of self imposed isolation and the Economic War with Great Britain, families in Ireland with in excess of 10 children still managed to ensure none of their children died of malnutrition.
Added to the fact that religious orders see themselves as doing Gods work I personally want to know how they could eat their dinner at night when children under their care died of malnutrition?

 

[Latrade]

Similarly, just because these misfortunate rejected members of society finish up in the care of religious institutions does not necessarily mean that religious institutions are responsible for their misfortune or their rejection.

Hmmm, that is going to depend entirely on many things though; such as the sale of babies to America as one example.

Of course, all undocumented and the child sold as an orphan even when their mother was working right there in the same building as them. But if these sales worked out quite nicely in terms of money (always through a third party charity of course), then the expansion of the institutions from primarily helping prostitutes and the mentally ill to large scale "illegitimate" pregnancies would have a more sinister feel to it.

Or just how the volume of those rejected increased with an increase in the number of institutions. You're right though probably a coincidence or a mere correlation rather than causation. But then, this was around the time when there was a peak in selling babies to America, and let's not forget that the slave labour aspect of the mothers was working out quite handy too. But it would be foolish to conclude anything other than it was the Irish State and it's people who rejected these mothers and babies. The increase in numbers needing the "care" of these institutions was as a result of an increase in immoral behaviour.

Same in Australia and America.

That or the perception and rejection of the mothers and babies (at an unprecident rate in any other time in history) was fuelled by church influence at mass and at a political level as nothing more than a "moral" driven supply and demand issue.

 

[Latrade]

The state certainly outsourced the problem and society as a whole must take its fair share of the blame.
I would definately hold De Valera and all leaders in the country to account as they effectivily over saw the the outsourcing.

Just on this issue. I agree with all your other points, but I feel that we are perhaps apportioning too much blame onto the state and it's people. As stated in my other post: the abuse and mistreatment wasn't isolated to Ireland, it was everywhere the church was allowed to run such institutions.

To take a slight digression for a second on something I am qualified to comment on and that is influencing social policy. To quote Lord of the Rings: One does not simply walk into Mordor.

One does not simply walk into the office of a minister and get such deep tacit acceptance of abuse. Simply, this isn't an issue of all these individual institutions acting independently and a state willingly turning a blind eye, for such widespread and global abuse it requires a more focussed and highlevel lobbying.

For all this to have been ignored by the state for so long, it couldn't have even been the Bon Secours or local priest who has asked for help in the silence and it certainly isn't independent ministers acting on their own whims to keep it hidden, it is focussed lobbying.

The influence to indemnify the pharmaceutical industry against the swine flu vaccine didn't come from local pharmacists and GPs who would administer it, it came from very highly paid lobbyists and senior representatives of the pharma industry.

For so many states across the world to tacitly accept such abuses clearly shows that this wasn't just local state politicians acting on whatever conscience they had, it was a clear policy and lobbying of that policy by senior and influencial members of the central organisation.

If it were that easy to influence politicians at a local and independent level, there'd be no need for any lobbying industry or trade federation and yet it exists and is very effective.

If every other aspect of social policy is influenced by organised and high-level representations by federations, NGOs and Industries, then why do we not assume the same of the church? For such a complete common world-wide policy of political indifference and assistance in covering up abuse, it can only be from a central policy.

And on that, when it comes to the issues and indemnification from swine flu, we do apportion blame on the government, but much more has been written and discussed about those who lobbied for it. Same with any similar political interference on policy, our biggest ire is reserved for those institutions who brought on the influence.

 

[Purple]

Being aware of the lack of oversight and funding for the care of children is one thing; we are all aware of the suffering of those in famine situations or the mistreatment of people in North Korea etc.. The is a world of a difference between that and being the person who takes a baby away from it's mother to sell it to strangers n another land or the person who sees, hears and smells the hunger and suffering of babies as they die of malnutrition. Most of us would, at the very least, kick up a fuss. I don't remember anyone from these orders making any protests about the deaths of so many children in their care. I don't hear any of them citing any retrospective remorse.

The "Munich defence" doesn't stand.

 

[cremeegg]

I am sorry but the pre-occupation with the past in the above posts is futile.

Always in this country we talk about the past.

The only thing we can do for the past is learn from it. Throw the church out of education today.

 

[Purple]

I am sorry but the pre-occupation with the past in the above posts is futile.

Always in this country we talk about the past.

The only thing we can do for the past is learn from it. Throw the church out of education today.

The RC Church in Ireland, just like Ireland as a whole, is not the same beast it was 50 years ago. The ordinary members cannot be held forever guilty for the sins of those in the past. That is of course conditional on seeing that they accept their historical sins. The same though applies to the rest of us.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

There are lots of strands to this horror story. One strand is the RC ethos which rejected these mothers and their babies from their family surrounds in social stigma. I'm parking that one and concentrating on the current hysterical demonization of the nuns in whose care these misfortunates finally finished.

Latrade and others persist in the use of the word "abuse", the direct implication being that if they had been in the care of any other institution with the same resources everything would have been honky dory; the blame lies with the abuse meted out by the nuns.

I doubt that narrative will withstand any fair enquiry. Ireland of the 20s and 30s was a pretty dire place. De Valera's smug plunging of the country into an economic war with Britain meant an impoverished nation became even more so - my guess is even more impoverished than those countries in Africa today where infant mortality is still unacceptably high.

Infant mortality in Dublin was over 10% in the general population. The big killer was infectious diseases. These would be of multiplied severity in a circumstance of communal surroundings with inadequate resources available for food or indeed medicines. An outbreak of measles, for example, in such an environment could wipe out scores of babies.

My guess is that the enquiry will reveal that most of these nuns were doing their best by their own standards in intolerable circumstances. The real scandal is why did society dump so many mothers and their babies in these homes and not the behaviour of the nuns who had the most unenviable task of looking after these rejects in hopelessly inadequate conditions.

Let's please forget the septic tank motif. 25% infant mortality is practically war zone stuff - difficult to give them all a send off with full ceremonial pomp.

 

[Firefly]

They obviously didn’t think half of the children in their care dying was worth making a fuss about.

I was thinking this very thing yesterday during a long drive. Imagine the nuns tucking into their Sunday roast while a few rooms away there were children starving. All the time doing God's work? I appreciate it that the State was ultimately responsible but just like the paedophile priest situation, how come none of the "good" nuns did anything about it ?

 

[cremeegg]

The RC Church in Ireland, just like Ireland as a whole, is not the same beast it was 50 years ago.

What makes you think this. I think it is exactly the same power seeking organisation it always was. My local school is about to appoint a new head teacher. Who do you think will choose the candidate. The parents?, the teachers?, the board of management?. No chance, none of these will be involved.

The Church will appoint the new head teacher with no requirement to discuss with anybody.

The ordinary members cannot be held forever guilty for the sins of those in the past.

I agree. I just want to end the involvement of the institution in the education of young people. They have proven they are not fit.

 

[Kerrigan]

A very interesting Sindo article quotes from some Scottish doctor visiting these homes in 1955. He says the "County Council paid the home £1 per week for each child and mother. That is a pittance." And indeed it was, I reckon about €50 per week in today's money

Does the £1 include the money they were in receipt of from their laundry services? All achieved on the backs of slave labour.

 

[Purple]

De Valera's smug plunging of the country into an economic war with Britain meant an impoverished nation became even more so

It's off topic but I'm not a big fan of that revisionist view of things given that the annuities paid by this country, effectively to buy our own land from the British, amounted to 12% of total tax revenue at the time. This was a massive burden at the time and was both financially crippling and morally wrong.

 

[Purple]

The real scandal is why did society dump so many mothers and their babies in these homes and not the behaviour of the nuns who had the most unenviable task of looking after these rejects in hopelessly inadequate conditions.

Good point.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Does the £1 include the money they were in receipt of from their laundry services? All achieved on the backs of slave labour.

The indentured labour and the selling of babies to Americans are of course also strands in this sorry saga.

However, I cannot buy into any theory which holds that this was a massive commercial exploitation on the part of the nuns for self enrichment. More likely any additional sources of income were used to supplement the hopelessly inadequate conscience money from the State, and by the State I mean society as a whole.

The real issue with the "nuns' strand" is, given the resources and conditions they had at their disposal was their own behaviour the main or even a significant contributor to the appalling infant death rates? That's the issue, not the nature of the interment of these poor rejects of society.

Purple, I am not expert on the financial/political calculus of the annuities/economic war business. But my main point is that Ireland of those times had poverty levels on a par with what we now call Third World countries.

 

[The_Banker]

The indentured labour and the selling of babies to Americans are of course also strands in this sorry saga.

However, I cannot buy into any theory which holds that this was a massive commercial exploitation on the part of the nuns for self enrichment. More likely any additional sources of income were used to supplement the hopelessly inadequate conscience money from the State, and by the State I mean society as a whole.

The real issue with the "nuns' strand" is, given the resources and conditions they had at their disposal was their own behaviour the main or even a significant contributor to the appalling infant death rates? That's the issue, not the nature of the interment of these poor rejects of society.

I would contend that any money made from adoptions, working in laundries etc was used to build up the catholic church. How else did they become the largest property owning organisation in Ireland (before NAMA)?
While people are now casting doubt on some of the stories coming out of the homes from the media, one fact is inescapable.

Children died from malnutrition.

It is on the death certs of some of the 796 children who died in Tuam between 1925 and 1961.

How could the richest organisation in Ireland at that time allow children in there care to die from malnutrition? An organisation who preached love, kindness and devotion to the ideals of This post will be deleted if not edited immediately?

Apologists for the church also cast doubt on the stories coming out in the early 90s regarding sexual abuse committed by priests and covered up by church authorities to protect the power and authority of the church.
The church only released documents and information begrudgingly after inquiries were set up.

The quicker an independent inquiry is established the better. Hopefully whoever is appointed will be from outside this country.

 

[Time]

Part of the problem is people are still attending mass and giving the organisation money. They need to be starved of attention and money.

It is all well and good for people to give out about the RC but yet they continue to suck up to them. By attending their rituals they are giving approval for what they do.

 

[Purple]

Part of the problem is people are still attending mass and giving the organisation money. They need to be starved of attention and money.

It is all well and good for people to give out about the RC but yet they continue to suck up to them. By attending their rituals they are giving approval for what they do.

Speaking as an atheist I find that very unfair.
There are people who believe in the message and the core teachings of the Church. There is no reason to reject the message because of the transgressions of the messengers.

 

[Duke of Marmalade]

Children died from malnutrition.

This is getting repetitive. Is it your contention that the nuns had adequate resources to properly feed their cares but purloined those resources for their own gratification?

 

[Sunny]

I agree. I was horrified when I read about this last week and that I hadn't heard anything about it. Turns out this story has been out for years. There is tons of well written research but the media have latched on to dramatic headlines like deaths by malnutrition. What they don't explain is the context that these deaths happened. Most of it was due to ignorance about breast feeding and baby nutrition. This was the early 20th century. The mortality rate of all babies was extremely high in Ireland. It was higher in these homes because you had a load of babies and adults in a confined space. Neo natal units weren't exactly common. There is no evidence from what I have seen to suggest that children were starved to death deliberately.
I am not saying truly horrific things didn't happen and I am not religious so couldnt care less about defending the church but people need to read past the headlines. In a 100 years time, people will be reading how we make women give birth to babies to watch them die in pain or else slip over to the UK like common criminals.