Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

robindch

6,000 adoptions from six mother and baby homes across 23 years

That's around one "adoption" a week, every week in every "home", for 23 years:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/6-000-adoptions-from-six-mother-and-baby-homes-across-23-years-1.1868486

Irish Times wrote:

More than 6,000 adoptions were recorded as having taken place in six mother and baby homes in the 23 years between 1950 and 1973, contemporaneous records show. The children went to a range of destinations including the US, Britain and Germany, as well as to homes across Ireland. The information on adoptions was supplied by two homes maintained by local authorities – the Children’s Home in Tuam and St Patrick’s Home in Pelletstown, Dublin – and four other homes run by religious orders where local health authorities sent unmarried mothers.

These were the Sacred Heart Home, Bessborough, Cork, Sean Ross Abbey, Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and St Peter’s (also known as Manor House), Castlepollard, Co Westmeath, all of which were run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, and Ard Mhuire in Dunboyne, Co Meath, which opened in 1955 and was run by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Between April 1st, 1950, and March 31st, 1973, 6,109 adoptions were recorded in annual returns filed by these institutions to the Department of Health. However, the true figure may be higher as a small number of records are missing for the period between 1968 and 1971.

In a small number of cases, the returns also included information on where the children were adopted to. For example, in the year to the end of March 1955, more than half (41) of the 81 adoptions recorded in St Patrick’s Home in Dublin were listed as “USA”. Of the 423 children adopted from the institution between April 1st, 1959, and March 31st, 1963, 78 were listed as American adoptions while one child was adopted to Germany. Returns for Sean Ross Abbey between April 1st, 1960, and March 31st, 1967, indicate that, of the 634 children adopted in that time, 111 went to the US, nine to England and two to Scotland.

Between 1950 and 1973, an average of 63,000 births occurred in Ireland each year. The records also shed light on 518 deaths which occurred in five mother and baby homes (excluding Tuam) between April 1st, 1950, and March 31st, 1973. These deaths are over and above the 61 deaths which occurred in the children’s home in Tuam from April 1st, 1950, onwards.

In the years between 1965 and 1969, an average of 980 women and 1,050 children a year were admitted to such institutions, a figure which includes children born in the homes. The records show that all five institutions did accept private admissions but confirm that the vast majority of women and children in these homes were provided for by the State. The records are contained in a file contained in the archives of the Department of Health titled Children and Mothers in Special Homes Annual Returns covering the 23 years between April 1st, 1950, and March 31st, 1973.

Glengormanjay

All - Please see this link to a petition to get the UN to investigate the Mother and Baby Homes issues/crimes. I'm sure this is direct response to the "delayed" Government investigation.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_United_Nations_Crimes_Against_Humanity_Investigate_the_Mother_Baby_Homes_Forced_Adoptions_Medical_Experiments/?dIMLGeb

Brian Shanahan

I was browsing through the tv guide for the week before last's Criminal's Gazetteer when by chance I spotted a piece by John Byrnes (an associate editor of the newspaper and co-founder of the Oirish edition). It's the Media Player byline tucked in beside the review of the english channels by a Scottish reviewer.

In it he talks about Rosita Boland's imfamous article based off her misquotes from an interview with Ruth Corless which he describes (without irony) as an "excellent article" (maybe if you're of the genus onanistus prolixus, but not if you are a thinking person).

His reasons why the article is "excellent" are two fold:
1) Rosita supposedly refutes the whole 800 babies corpses are missing by pointing out that Ruth Corless never said dumped. This tactic of refuting the argument by pointing out inconsequential errors is ridiculous, and doesn't in fact refute anything.
2) The video supposedly agrees with the article, well that is simply bull. Look at his first point of "brilliance", in which the whole story is refuted by the repeal of a single word, "dumped". According to Ms. Boland there whole 800 babies thing had fallen apart and there was no such discrepancy, yet the video clearly has Mrs. Corless replying to this assertion by Ms. Boland by pointing out that a) the septic cavern in question was big enough to house 800 corpses, b) because it was never properly excavated we don't know how many corpses are buried there, at least twenty but probably more, and c) the scandal was not where they were buried but the nuns running the mother and baby home had the callous indifference to kill off 800 children through sheer neglect and never notify anyone about it (which was the line taken by all other newspapers apart from Ms. Boland's IT and various fundy catholic propoganda rags).

He goes on to castigate Adrienne Corless (daughter of Ruth) for criticising Ms. Boland's article in a blog piece, never once mentioning that a) it was written with the full knowledge and cooperation of Ruth Corless so it was essentially Ruth's own words, and b) every criticism made was completely accurate and factually correct torpedoing Ms. Boland's attempted hatchet job.

In essence the article praised a piece by Ms. Boland that would have seen her being sacked from any newspaper with journalistic integrity for the offence of gross mendacity. Her piece was litterally as bad as the "reporting" of the NYT journalist who was sacked after the paper found out he was pretending to be in Iraq and sending back copy purporting to show the conditions in that country after the US invasion of 2003.

Cabaal

No so much unmarked graces,
Instead these sick bastards told the unmarried mothers their babies had died during birth and then gave the babies away to married couples

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28795897

eire4

Glengormanjay wrote: »

All - Please see this link to a petition to get the UN to investigate the Mother and Baby Homes issues/crimes. I'm sure this is direct response to the "delayed" Government investigation.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_United_Nations_Crimes_Against_Humanity_Investigate_the_Mother_Baby_Homes_Forced_Adoptions_Medical_Experiments/?dIMLGeb

Signed. No way do I trust this government to properly and fully investigate these crimes when it was Irish governments of the day who were a massive part of the problem.

Going Strong

From today's Irish Examiner.

Infant death rates at the Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Cork soared to almost 70% in the early 1940s.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/68-of-babies-in-bessborough-home-died-283446.html

Akrasia

Going Strong wrote: »

From today's Irish Examiner.

Infant death rates at the Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Cork soared to almost 70% in the early 1940s.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/68-of-babies-in-bessborough-home-died-283446.html

68% child mortality rate is absolutely criminal.
Afghanistan has a mortality rate below the age of 5 of 19%

What the hell were these nuns doing to these babies?

FouxDaFaFa

I can't believe that statistic.

Initially I thought it must be an anomaly for a particular year, maybe there was a severe outbreak of a contagious disease and 68% of the children died. But according to that, nothing like that happened.

SpaceTime

Let's not continue to kid ourselves, Ireland in the early and mid 20th century period was a very, very strange place.

These Irish citizens were clearly seen as an embarrassment so they were just socially cleansed out of society as the whole concept of sex outside marriage didn't fit with a puritanical work of fiction that generation claimed to live in.

I'm really concerned this kind of ability to turn a blind eye is still going on. Too many kids being lost by the authorities, weird lack of tranaparecy at refugee centres etc etc

Same eyes, new blind spot.

lazygal

Ireland still is a strange place. We give constitutional protection to "the unborn" in one article and then have a provision below it to guarantee the right of women to information on and the ability to kill the unborn, once it's not done on our hallowed ground. We outsource most of our primary and secondary schools to unaccountable private interests who despite receiving state funding to provide essential services can discriminate on religious grounds.

jank

Akrasia wrote: »

What the hell were these nuns doing to these babies?

Lack of proper training and hygiene more than anything 'sinister'. This is all old news anyway I thought.

jank

Also, the title of the article itself is totally misleading and indicative of the reporting the Irish media have done on this sensitive issue.

Firedance

lazygal wrote: »

Ireland still is a strange place. We give constitutional protection to "the unborn" in one article and then have a provision below it to guarantee the right of women to information on and the ability to kill the unborn, once it's not done on our hallowed ground. We outsource most of our primary and secondary schools to unaccountable private interests who despite receiving state funding to provide essential services can discriminate on religious grounds.

And stranger still, we give constitutional protection to the unborn but when that child is adopted out they no longer have any rights, either to the information on where they came from, their parentage or even their own medical records! so why bother giving them protection in the first place then just treat like a 2nd class citizen from then on. It struck me quite forcefully last week with this child that they delivered by c-section at 25 weeks - what if its mother won't/can't keep it, who will rear it? what will he or she know about its origins when they're older? The governments of this country don't give a dam about protection of the unborn, not really, its all for show. Sorry for the rant..

lazygal

I think we have proved quite comprehensively that the concern for the unborn ceases as soon as he or she exits the uterus. We have treated the born children and adults appallingly for many years, and continue to do so.

Akrasia

jank wrote: »

Lack of proper training and hygiene more than anything 'sinister'. This is all old news anyway I thought.

In Afghanistan half the children are born in huts on the side of a mountain with no access to any medical services (only 34% of births in Afghanistan are in the presence of 'skilled health professionals') and they can still manage an 80% survival rate compared with a 30% survival rate in Besborough.

Nodin

"Infant death rates at the Bessborough mother-and-baby home in Cork soared to almost 70% in the early 1940s.
The revelations come just two months after the Government announced a statutory commission to investigate practices, deaths, illegal adoptions and vaccine trials at the country’s mother-and-baby homes.

Previous research done by adoption campaigners indicated a death rate of around 50% and above at Bessborough throughout the late 1930s and 1940s.
However, material uncovered by the Irish Examiner in the Cork City archives shows an official investigation carried out by the Cork County Medical Officer in 1943, on foot of inquiries from a Department of Local Government inspector, confirmed a death rate of 68% at the
home. "
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/68-of-babies-in-bessborough-home-died-283446.html

Vile stuff.

Cabaal

Akrasia wrote: »

In Afghanistan half the children are born in huts on the side of a mountain with no access to any medical services (only 34% of births in Afghanistan are in the presence of 'skilled health professionals') and they can still manage an 80% survival rate compared with a 30% survival rate in Besborough.

shhhh, now don't be using facts and figures to argue against Jank

Spring Onion

jank wrote: »

Lack of proper training and hygiene more than anything 'sinister'. This is all old news anyway I thought.

BS and you know it.

You would like it to be old news but there will be an inquiry and the rotten organisations will be exposed.

The Black Oil

A bit old, but good to see her challenged and told to cop on.

https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/480505972130349057
https://twitter.com/delexical/status/480511148216041472
https://twitter.com/AdrienneJoCo/status/482519253359525888

Nodin

...wouldn't have thought yer one was a holy joe.

PopePalpatine

jank wrote: »

Lack of proper training and hygiene more than anything 'sinister'. This is all old news anyway I thought.

It won't be "old news" until the order involved gives a sincere apology and an independent investigation is carried out.

Judging by your past form, I'd say you wouldn't be so callous if instead of 800 babies of unmarried mothers in a cesspit, there were 8 Jordan Belfort-wannabes who met their end at the hands of Occupy Wall Street.

Brian Shanahan

The Black Oil wrote: »

A bit old, but good to see her challenged and told to cop on.

https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch/status/480505972130349057
https://twitter.com/delexical/status/480511148216041472
https://twitter.com/AdrienneJoCo/status/482519253359525888

Any time I post on the Grauniad under an article by Mensch, I deride her as Simpering Idiot, because that is what she is.

She'd need the services of a map to wipe her posterior after a defecation, she's so thick.

robindch

Mod:

Brian Shanahan wrote: »

[...] I deride her as Simpering Idiot [...] She'd need the services of a map to wipe her posterior after a defecation, she's so thick.

If you're going to be rude, can you at least try to be funny?

Humorless ravings earn cards.

jank

Spring Onion wrote: »

BS and you know it.

What exactly is BS?

jank

Akrasia wrote: »

In Afghanistan half the children are born in huts on the side of a mountain with no access to any medical services (only 34% of births in Afghanistan are in the presence of 'skilled health professionals') and they can still manage an 80% survival rate compared with a 30% survival rate in Besborough.

Afghanistan 2014 vs Ireland 1943. Do we have stats for both around 1943 as that is the true comparison if one was fair. Even fairer still would be a similar institution where unwanted babies were born.
By the way I don't want to start a 'who's worse us or them' argument here. I was just relating to the fact that it was known that there was a very very high mortality rate in Bessborough around this time as reported some months back due to unhygienic conditions and lack of training, which of course was appalling and tragic for those concerned.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/extraordinary-doctor-stood-up-to-clergy-and-closed-home-30344924.html

It is of course good to have more facts come to light however, as I already mentioned the way this whole thing is reported leaves a lot to be desired, just look at the title of the link that was posted. Hugely misleading and done on purpose to whip it up.

jank

PopePalpatine wrote: »

It won't be "old news" until the order involved gives a sincere apology and an independent investigation is carried out.

Judging by your past form, I'd say you wouldn't be so callous if instead of 800 babies of unmarried mothers in a cesspit, there were 8 Jordan Belfort-wannabes who met their end at the hands of Occupy Wall Street.

Why are you trying to personalise this?

Vivisectus

jank wrote: »

Afghanistan 2014 vs Ireland 1943. Do we have stats for both around 1943 as that is the true comparison if one was fair. Even fairer still would be a similar institution where unwanted babies were born.
By the way I don't want to start a 'who's worse us or them' argument here. I was just relating to the fact that it was known that there was a very very high mortality rate in Bessborough around this time as reported some months back due to unhygienic conditions and lack of training, which of course was appalling and tragic for those concerned.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/extraordinary-doctor-stood-up-to-clergy-and-closed-home-30344924.html

It is of course good to have more facts come to light however, as I already mentioned the way this whole thing is reported leaves a lot to be desired, just look at the title of the link that was posted. Hugely misleading and done on purpose to whip it up.

But we have reason to believe that the poor circumstances were deemed acceptable because the women were being actively punished for the sin of having engaged in pre-marital sex.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/young-mums-denied-painkillers-to-make-them-suffer-for-their-sins-30337250.html

We are not just talking "poor hygiene and lack of training" here, as in some poor under-funded nuns doing the best they can in challenging circumstances.

There is very good reason to suspect institutionalized cruelty on a revolting scale, fueled by religious fanaticism.

As for your contention that the comparison should be Afghanistan in the 1940's we compare with, that is just silly. The whole point is to show that even in a war-torn country with shortages and very little medical infrastructure, it is possible to avoid such appalling death rates.

Infant mortality per 1000 in the 1950's was about 60 in western Europe, and 180 in Africa.

Here we are talking over 500 per 1000. Close to 100 times higher.

lazygal

Have any of the alleged burial sites in Tuam or anywhere else be sealed off for a forensic examination yet? What is the protocol for a forensic investigation, does someone have to report a suspected crime to the Garda or can the Garda start an inquiry itself? It seems crazy that there are possible crime scenes being left alone and makes me think nothing has changed as regards religious bodies being subject to state law.

marienbad

jank wrote: »

Afghanistan 2014 vs Ireland 1943. Do we have stats for both around 1943 as that is the true comparison if one was fair. Even fairer still would be a similar institution where unwanted babies were born.
By the way I don't want to start a 'who's worse us or them' argument here. I was just relating to the fact that it was known that there was a very very high mortality rate in Bessborough around this time as reported some months back due to unhygienic conditions and lack of training, which of course was appalling and tragic for those concerned.
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/extraordinary-doctor-stood-up-to-clergy-and-closed-home-30344924.html

It is of course good to have more facts come to light however, as I already mentioned the way this whole thing is reported leaves a lot to be desired, just look at the title of the link that was posted. Hugely misleading and done on purpose to whip it up.

Jank, I just don't understand your response to some of these stories. Sometimes the offence is so great that the manner and motive of its exposure is really irrelevant .

Lets not continuously over analyse the messenger and just begin to accept responsibility that it happened in this country of ours .

@jank

@jank

That people in towns surrounding concentration camps knew of their existence doesn't lessen the crime and horror.

I can't make the progression that you seem to have mentioned several times that "Given A knew about X, that Y shouldn't be appalled by X".