Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

Flippyfloppy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

How is it a dodge?? You asked what I thought of the RCC, that's (in a nutshell) what I think. Some good, some bad, like any other organisation of people.

Still refusing to respond to the facts I presented?!

Flippyfloppy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Conclusion suggests an end to the story. I'd prefer a thorough investigation before I conclude.



No. I'm suggesting they might hold off passing judgement until we know what, in fact happened.



I was responding to your suggestion that a boards team investigate the matter. I responded, jokingly, that this is what should happen because the suggestion was so absurd (and I think you meant it in a tongue-in-cheek way to begin with yourself). Sorry for any confusion.

We do know what happened. And the Catholic Church are remaining tight-lipped about it as it is.

What is it that you are arguing? What plausable explanation can you offer for a discovery of 800 dead children in a tank? I asked you this earlier in so many words, are you going to ignore again?

I Heart Internet

eyescreamcone wrote: »

However, one of my favorite stories is the Assumption of Mary into heaven -"having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory"
as defined by Pope Pius XII (1950)
YES 1950!!!

The RCC is forever growing and expanding her magestirium. The Assumption is a piece of dogma based on writings from the 4th century. Hardly novel.

Anyway, I think you may be looking for another thread. This one is about the discovery of an unmarked grave in Galway.

bumper234

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

We do know what happened. And the Catholic Church are remaining tight-lipped about it as it is.

What is it that you are arguing? What plausable explanation can you offer for a discovery of 800 dead children in a tank? I asked you this earlier in so many words, are you going to ignore again?

They all sleep walked/crawled and "fell" in.

I Heart Internet

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

We do know what happened.

Ok. So when was the first person buried in that plot? What was their name?

How many children died of measles and were buried there?

I Heart Internet

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

What is it that you are arguing? What plausable explanation can you offer for a discovery of 800 dead children in a tank? I asked you this earlier in so many words, are you going to ignore again?

I don't know. That's why I'd like to find out.

If you want me to engage in speculation, I won't.

Flippyfloppy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Ok. So when was the first person buried in that plot? What was their name?

How many children died of measles and were buried there?

You edited my post to avoid the question posed to you? Again.

eviltwin

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Ok. So when was the first person buried in that plot? What was their name?

How many children died of measles and were buried there?

The bodies were placed there from 1925 onwards, no records exist of who they are, we don't know if they did at one stage and got lost/destroyed or if they ever were recorded. The original home is gone now, just this tank and a small bit of ruins remains. The people who know are the nuns who were there and possibly the order they belonged to if the records still exist. They have been very quiet on this. If no one can say for sure what happened or who these children were then they should at least say that, if they have any information about who these children might be they should do the right thing and let the authorities knows. These are 800 children we're talking about, they had a mother and a family and they deserve to be acknowledged and those families given a chance to inter them in a family plot.

Flippyfloppy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Ok. So when was the first person buried in that plot? What was their name?

How many children died of measles and were buried there?

Seeing as you said you are uninformed I'll explain- it was an unmarked grave. We don't know their names. We should - but we don't. As for measles - we don't know that either. All we do know is that there is Health Inspector reports stating the children appeared malnourished.

SpaceTime

While I don't want to go way OT here, I always find at their core christian faiths have a lot of conflicting ideas being presented as if they can be reconciled together as a single message.

On the one hand you've got a very positive message of love, peace, solidarity, forgiving people for pretty much anything, being charitable, etc etc. You can't find fault with most of that. All basically very solid foundation for a good society and in general I can't see any issue with any of that.

However, you then have a whole layer that's obsessed with oppressing sexuality, sin, guilt-tripping people about normal things, strange attitudes to very practical topics like condoms, contraception, overly-strict views of family law, being totally unforgiving of people who fall outside the fold like single mothers (in the past more so than now), homophobia, lack of women's rights etc etc.

The two sets of messages to me are totally incongruous and what really annoys me is that you get many christians who will just combine the two. One the one hand you get presented with all the nice bits as a justification for why they're so virtuous and then you get whacked with the really negative stuff sort of on the side.

In modern terms it can be summed up for me by the attitude that they love gay people, yet homosexuality is a terrible sin. That's just a totally self-contradicting point of view and you can't really have it both ways.

It's just mind boggling to me though that organisations that preach love, peace and understanding could treat pregnant women and kids so unbelievably badly.
It's really the worst kind of hypocrisy.

I Heart Internet

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

You edited my post to avoid the question posed to you? Again.

I split it in two. What's the problem?

jimgoose

I haven't a lot to say about this. I'll just say that General Eisenhower threw up on witnessing something rather similar at Ohrdruf in 1945.

I Heart Internet

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

Seeing as you said you are uninformed I'll explain- it was an unmarked grave. We don't know their names. We should - but we don't. As for measles - we don't know that either. All we do know is that there is Health Inspector reports stating the children appeared malnourished.

So, if we don't know, we should investigate the matter.

eyescreamcone

I Heart Internet wrote: »

The RCC is forever growing and expanding her magestirium. The Assumption is a piece of dogma based on writings from the 4th century. Hardly novel.

Only a few hundred years after it alledgedly happened.
Must be gospel :rolleyes:


...Anyway, back to the sceptic tanks of Tuam for even more FACTS on how we can love the RCC...

Flippyfloppy

eviltwin wrote: »

The bodies were placed there from 1925 onwards, no records exist of who they are, we don't know if they did at one stage and got lost/destroyed or if they ever were recorded. The original home is gone now, just this tank and a small bit of ruins remains. The people who know are the nuns who were there and possibly the order they belonged to if the records still exist. They have been very quiet on this. If no one can say for sure what happened or who these children were then they should at least say that, if they have any information about who these children might be they should do the right thing and let the authorities knows. These are 800 children we're talking about, they had a mother and a family and they deserve to be acknowledged and those families given a chance to inter them in a family plot.

The thing is, it feels like these poor babies had nobody. Nobody then ,and nobody now to speak out for them! Judging by the way the nuns treat people looking for information about adoptions that occured under their care, and how they refuse to redress the Magdelene sufferers, I would imagine that this secret will die with them.

eviltwin

I Heart Internet wrote: »

So, if we don't know, we should investigate the matter.

Investigating the matter would require the input of the order running the home, do you really think they are going to bother themselves?

mrsbyrne

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

We do know what happened. And the Catholic Church are remaining tight-lipped about it as it is.

What is it that you are arguing? What plausable explanation can you offer for a discovery of 800 dead children in a tank? I asked you this earlier in so many words, are you going to ignore again?

As far as I know an investigation has yet to take place, never mind conclusions being drawn.
Yet you claim to know what happened.
Have you presented your evidence to the Gardai? Another poster on this thread claimed to "know" what happened at Tuam as well. If everybody who "knows' what happened at Tuam r any other potential scene of crime would simply present themselves at a Garda station and make a statement then it would expediate each investigation and the Guards could move swiftly through the process to where arrests could be made.

I Heart Internet

eviltwin wrote: »

Investigating the matter would require the input of the order running the home, do you really think they are going to bother themselves?

Have you asked them? They might, they should.

ryan101

eviltwin wrote: »

Investigating the matter would require the input of the order running the home, do you really think they are going to bother themselves?

This is not a valid reason to skip a proper detailed investigation. Prosecutions can still be made, with or without co-operation.

SpaceTime

When you think about it though Ireland really got a double dose of conservatism.

On the one hand you'd a continuation of Victorian / Edwardian 'respectability' above all else type society combined with a rigid class system.
Then on the other hand you'd a very conservative interpretation of catholicism.

In the 20th century those two factors combined so you ended up with a sort of Catholic-Victorian society that was existing in the 20th century complete with Dickensian workhouses and all sorts of ultra conservative notions that were passed off as 'morality'.

The result was a cold, hard, ultra-conservative society that was quite prepared to react brutally to anyone who was 'not respectable'.

eviltwin

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Have you asked them? They might, they should.

Have you ever tried asking an order for any information? Its like getting blood from a stone. I've had personal experience of it and that only related to the most basic of information for the person involved, nothing earth shattering or on a scale like this.

eviltwin

ryan101 wrote: »

This is not a valid reason to skip a proper detailed investigation. Prosecutions can still be made, with or without co-operation.

You would hope so but after such a long time how can anything be proved? No one will be able to say for sure how any of those children died.

mrsbyrne

eviltwin wrote: »

Investigating the matter would require the input of the order running the home, do you really think they are going to bother themselves?

Well if even only the posters on this thread who claim to "know" what happened at Tuam made a statement to Gardai then the Guards would probably get permission from the judiciary to serve a warrant on the Order to compel them to cooperate. Then they would have to produce their records and the investigation could move on.
Posters seem to be reluctant though to go to the Guards with their evidence . I don't know why. Its as if they don't actually know what happened and are just wildly recklessly speculating about a topic which may be causing terrible mental anguish to people involved who are still alive. And I'm not talking about the nuns.

ryan101

eviltwin wrote: »

You would hope so but after such a long time how can anything be proved? No one will be able to say for sure how any of those children died.

Again this is not a reason to skip a detailed investigation. Modern forensics are very able, this burial site was in use up to the 60's and plenty of witnesses, including former children and lay staff are still alive to be interviewed to find out what actually happened via a properly constituted enquiry. Then prosecutions can follow, and prison for anyone found guilty of an act or omission, beyond all reasonable doubt, in a proper court of law.

I Heart Internet

eviltwin wrote: »

You would hope so but after such a long time how can anything be proved? No one will be able to say for sure how any of those children died.

So we should jump to the worst possible conclusion?

Doesn't the historian's report give soem details at least. Measles was attributed to some deaths. Measles was an appaling killer in the first half of this century. Would be more devastating in crowded environments.

Flippyfloppy

I Heart Internet wrote: »

So, if we don't know, we should investigate the matter.

Obviously. However, the point is, this mass grave was discovered in the 1970's. Yet it hasn't been investigated yet. Which screams of unbelievable allowances towards what goes on behind the CC doors.

SpaceTime

While we can't really put this right, I think we need to just barge through any red-tape, religious bureaucracy, secrecy or anything else and get fully to the bottom of what happened here.

At the very least, these kids need to be identified, their deaths explained properly and recorded properly. Any criminality needs to be investigated and if anyone's still alive who participated in it, prosecuted accordingly. If they're capable of standing in court, that's where they should be.

The kids need to have birth and death certs and their existence needs to be acknowledged. While we can't go back in time and rescue them, we should at the very least recognise that they existed, know what happened to them, give them a right to judicial processes to seek justice and explanation to how they ended up in a septic tank and mourn their loss.

These are 800 very vulnerable Irish citizens who somehow ended up in a septic tank! That absolutely warrants full investigation!

shruikan2553

You would think having a pit of children in your back garden is a normal thing with how some people are going on. If this was found in my back garden I would be questioned and if I owned the property at the time and kept children at it I would be investigated so thoroughly I wouldn't be able to walk right. Were people sneaking in past the nuns when they weren't looking to dump the bodies? Burying a baby in secret from the church wasn't an uncommon thing so it must have been that.

I Heart Internet

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

Obviously. However, the point is, this mass grave was discovered in the 1970's. Yet it hasn't been investigated yet. Which screams of unbelievable allowances towards what goes on behind the CC doors.

Yes, and a culture of complacency with regard to how children were treated in society, especially poor children.

Tabnabs

Some facts that are being reported online:

A local health board inspection report from April 1944 recorded 271 children and 61 single mothers in residence, a total of 333 in a building that had a capacity for 243.

The report described the children as “emaciated,” “pot-bellied,” “fragile” with “flesh hanging loosely on limbs.” The report noted that 31 children in the “sun room and balcony” were “poor, emaciated and not thriving.” The effects of long term neglect and malnutrition were observed repeatedly.

Children died at The Home at the rate of one a fortnight for almost 40 years, one report claims. Another appears to claim that 300 children died between 1943 and 1946, which would mean two deaths a week in the isolated institution.

http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/Galway-historian-reveals-truth-behind-800-orphans-in-mass-grave.html

The deaths of 796 children in this "home" are recorded by the Galway Births and Deaths Registrar. It is known from surviving relatives that more deaths occurred and were not properly recorded (as was required by law).

The babies were usually buried in a plain shroud without a coffin in a plot that had housed a water tank attached to the workhouse that preceded the mother and child home.

A relative of one boy who lived there, William Joseph Dolan, has made a formal complaint to gardai after she failed to find his death certificate, despite records in the home stating that he had died.

More on the children from the health authority report:

One 13-month-old boy was described as a 'miserable, emaciated child with voracious appetite and no control over bodily functions and probably mentally defective'.

In the same room was a 'delicate' ten-month-old baby who was a 'child of itinerants', while one five-year-old child was described as having 'hands growing near shoulders'.

Another 31 infants in the same room were described as 'poor babies, emaciated and not thriving'.

Here's an eyewitness report on how these children were "cared for"

An 85-year-old woman who survived the children's home in Tuam has told of the miserable conditions at the home, where she was placed in 1932.

The woman, who gave her name only as Mary, and now lives in the west of Ireland, spent four years in the home before being placed with a foster family.

She said: 'I remember going into the home when I was about four. There was a massive hall in it and it was full of young kids running round and they were dirty and cold.

'There were well over 100 children in there and there were three or four nuns who minded us.

'The building was very old and we were let out the odd time, but at night the place was absolutely freezing with big stone walls.

'When we were eating it was in this big long hall and they gave us all this soup out of a big pot, which I remember very well. It was rotten to taste, but it was better than starving.'

Mary recalled that the children were 'rarely washed', and often wore the same clothes for weeks at a time.

She said: 'We were filthy dirty. I remember one time when I soiled myself, the nuns ducked me down into a big cold bath and I never liked nuns after that.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2645870/Mass-grave-contains-bodies-800-babies-site-Irish-home-unmarried-mothers.html

Just to confirm, this is what we are talking about; small children, individual human beings, "equal" citizens of Ireland (supposedly with rights under the Constitution). These were the contemporaries of the children who were condemned by the catholic church, the State and the Irish nation to lie in a mass concrete tomb.







http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/ireland/140602/mass-grave-childrens-home-800-babies

We should all stand up for the neglect, abuse and horror that was visited on these Irish citizens. Write to your TD, demand that this is investigated fully and openly.