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.
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.
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 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.
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.
They obviously didn’t think half of the children in their care dying was worth making a fuss about.
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.
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
De Valera's smug plunging of the country into an economic war with Britain meant an impoverished nation became even more so
Good point.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.
The indentured labour and the selling of babies to Americans are of course also strands in this sorry saga.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.
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.
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?Children died from malnutrition.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?