Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

robindch

Cabaal wrote: »

[...] with Junk its all about misrepresentation [...]

No name-calling.

Cabaal

robindch wrote: »

No name-calling.

Name calling?


Oh, appears I've misspelled his name.
Sorry about that

Turtwig

Gonna assume auto-correct fail but in future be a bit of wary of that.

Ta.

RDM_83 again

Before I trawl through 141 pages (I have read the last ten). Can anybody supply to quote Donald Rumsfeld :P

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know

I presume its still at the stage where there is the known known that burial records are missing and that there was a anonymously high infant mortality rate

The known unknown that these children/babies/fetuses were buried somewhere and that its likely that neglect or abuse occured

The unknown unknowns that we just don't know about.

I thought back to this thread after finding out about a location in the present day where burials are ongoing without official approval (though obviously with full knowledge and desire of all those involved)

ezra_pound

"And it is not knowable if force will be used, but if it is to be used, it is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

Waitsian

RDM_83 again wrote: »

I thought back to this thread after finding out about a location in the present day where burials are ongoing without official approval (though obviously with full knowledge and desire of all those involved)

What? Burials ongoing without approval? But with the desire of those involved? What exactly do you mean? Where? By whom? And why?

fisgon

Documentary on the Irish Mother and baby homes on BBC2 tonight at 9pm.

PopePalpatine

I wonder how well that would go down in T'Udder Forum. :pac:

Red Pepper

When are the terms of the inquiry being published?

RDM_83 again

mod9maple wrote: »

What? Burials ongoing without approval? But with the desire of those involved? What exactly do you mean? Where? By whom? And why?

I don't know a huge amount of what the 'official' problem is (and even if i did know exactly I wouldn;t share it on a public forum!).
But its an officially closed burial place, by the locals, and because its the place certain families will have been burying for centuries, so its not sinister and is very public.
In another case I know of an old body was exhumed in and unusual location to confusion but older locals knew the story behind it (this was a bit more sinister but I know even less details)
These are completely separate places btw!

I mentioned it because it got me thinking about the records relating to this case and how I would be curious about what local knowledge there is of other burial places being used in this case because having kept up to date with the report the immediate jump was made to the absolute worst case scenario by posters that would have a more logical approach on non CC issues, while on the other hand the fact there hasn't been locals stories about where the burials are might point towards an extremely secretive disposal.

PopePalpatine wrote: »

I wonder how well that would go down in T'Udder Forum. :pac:

As well as overt political correctness being cited as a contributing factor for long term industrial scale abuse in the UK in this forum

Stheno

That's a tough programme to watch

Cabaal

“I am looking for my half sister who was born at St Peters Hospital Castlepollard Co Westmeath on 29/11/1957 to a Mary Patricia McDowell. She was taken away from the Sacred Heart Convent Castle Pollard for adoption to the USA, The placement agency was The Angel Guardian Home Long Island New York.The was also given the name Mary Patricia when born but was adopted by an American Couple with the surname O’Connell. Anybody with any information please email.” (John Donoher)

“Hi my name is una Stroud from Athlone co westmeath.myself and my family are looking for our sister, she was born on January 28th 1954 or 1955 she was adopted to a couple from America, my mother’s name was Una Dunleavy from Sligo, sadly my mother passed this year on January 29th and we are desperate for help.as it was my mother’s dying wish to find her daughter our sister.” (Una Stroud)

“I am looking for a micky Joe mulligan,or Michael Joseph Mulligan born at castlepollard 1955/6 adopted to an American couple any information would be appreciated” (Totty Maude)

“I am adopted from Ireland. I was born in Castlepollard on June 12, 1951. My birthname was Catherine Mary Flanagan, my mothers name was Margaret Flanagan (formerly Clara) as states on my birth certificate. I was born at a place called Manor House. I was adopted in December of 1951. I am looking for any family which may still be in the area, and looking for information on my parents. I have no information on my father. I was adopted through the ST. Patricks Guild. I need help in looking for for any living relatives. I was adopted by a family from California in the US.” (Cathy Filglas)

“I was adopted from Ireland. I was born in Castlepollard on December 16, 1955. Was adopted from Sacred Heart in Castlepollard. My birth name was Christina Mary Connolly and was adopted on December 22, 1957 to the USA. I now live in New York. If anyone has any info on Connolly who gave birth to a daughter on December 16, 1955, please e-mail me at mauraseanard@yahoo.com…would like to hear from any others adopted from Castlepollard and any info anyone has in tracing their birth parents and possible siblings…” (Mary Jean Connolly)

“My name is Kelly Little now. I was born at Sacred Heart Convent/St. Peter Hospital in Castlepollard on the 4th of April 1962. My mothers name was Josephine Kelly (maiden name). The name on my birth certificate was Grainne Anne Kelly. I was adopted by a couple in Kansas in 1964. Josephine would have been around 22 at the time of my birth. If anyone has any info I would appreciate hearing from you. Please email me at blittle@usd261.com. “ (Kelly Little)

A selection of messages from the Irish Roots website [readable in full here and here] following last night’s BBC Two documentary “Ireland’s Lost Babies” (repeated tonight at 10.15 p.m. on RTÉ 2 and available to watch now on YouTube), featuring the Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Home, Castlepollard, County Westmeath

A key player in the Castlepollard adoptions was the local parish priest, Father PJ Regan, who was also chairman of the St Clare’s Adoption Society, run by the Franciscan sisters.

Journalist Mike Milotte, in his book “Banished Babies”, records that over 300 children from Castlepollard and over 130 children from St Clare’s, were adopted by American families during the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

The book also records how subsequent attempts by those children – and their mothers – to make contact – were frustrated by the deliberate provision of incorrect information by both Father Regan and the Sacred Heart nuns.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/09/18/root-less/


Youtube video of the show on BBC lastnight https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y6KZEUHx_s&feature=youtu.be

aloyisious

RTE 1 are showing it tonight at approx 1015 after Prime Time.

Cabaal

aloyisious wrote: »

RTE 1 are showing it tonight at approx 1015 after Prime Time.

I'm glad RTE aired it, just a shame they didn't air it earlier to ensure more people are aware of what went on.

Cabaal

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/09/19/cathy-and-johanna/

Further to this week’s BBC Two documentary ‘Ireland’s Lost Babies’ which featured the search by Cathy Deasy to find her biological mother Johanna Sheehy.

At 43, Johanna fell in love with the son of the owner of a farm where she worked. When she became pregnant with Cathy she was sent to the Mother and Child home run by the Sacred Heart sisters in Bessbororough, Co Cork.

Cathy lived for 4 years in an adjoining nursery section, rarely seen by her mother, before she was sent to America.

When they were reunited 40 years later Johanna told Cathy: “You’ve found the black sheep of the family.”

Cathy Deasy writes:

“It took me 18 years to find my birth mother who gave birth to me at the age of 43 and it was very sad for the emotional/physical abuse she endured during her lock up for 40 years. And before I die it is my mission to see justice for all the other moms and children (now adults) for all the abuse both moms and children endured at the Mother and Baby homes by both nuns and priests.

Not only did my mom go through so many years of heartbreak some time after I was born she was caught putting little booties on me. She not only heard the wrath of the nuns running the facility she was moved to Good Shepard Home, another hell hole to stay until finally in 1976, with a lot of Irish fuss by my cousins and family, they got her out of that institution and moved into their very loving home for the remaining years of her life.
It was called mother baby homes but believe me I am a living survivor of the disgusting abuse done to both me and my mom. The priests were able to relieve their ‘urges’ every Sunday after Sunday feast with the Mother Superior and her fellow nuns. All we ate was bread and cream of mushroom soup or potato soup every day of our lives.

I returned from Ireland for the final burial of my birth mom in October 2010. The truth did set me free but the scars of the abuse will never leave me. As I believe many others out there in USA like myself shipped out for money to awaiting adopted parents have there stories too. No review or booklets given to them of the challenges awaiting them by accepting a child (me) who was suffering from Post Traumatic Disorder before it was even defined by the Medical Jounals. I never married nor as much as I love children and would have loved to have a child of my own but because of the nightmares and damage done to me from birth till I was sent to USA at the tender age of 4 and half years old I had a lot of issues.

Sharing my story with others via internet on the adoption ireland web sites is amazing. All of us strangers but survivors of the same orphanage have so much in common it is mind blowing. Most of us have difficulty with relationships – intimacy issues, fears of the dark, trust issues, fear of abandonment is forever present and many of us had tough childhoods.
I was not adopted as a baby and just placed in the arms of parental strangers. I wound up being the “seed of a sinner” as the nuns called it and the Catholic church came up with this idea to get us out of the country and sell us out so they can make more and more and more money for their parishes.

It was all about money and secrets and lies. And over and over I was reminded ‘blood is thicker than water and you will never amount to anything’ I must tell the truth and those words came out of the mouth of my adopted father–we never were close–I was never acknowledged as his daughter for his 10 year old biological daughter was the only child he wanted and adored My adopted mom was full of love and always went the extra yard to defend me or protect me from any harm.

She loved me unconditionaly and her end came in 1992 and prior to her death she gave me my original birth certificate and my original passport which was a major missing link and the beginning of my reuniting with my birth mom via a computer purchase and the help of adoption ireland web site. No longer did I believe I was alone and I certainly was not “bad” or a “loser” and many of us throughout the USA suffered as I did – being sold to USA families and ripped out of the arms of our true moms. All of us children at that time had dollar amounts on our heads for the greedy Catholic nuns and priest for their parishes’ purses and to buy more land…and believe me it cost some of us our lives but most of all it left us with deep holes in our tiny hearts.

But I am a better person today and of all the dreams I have had in my life this was the best dream come true.I had the joy of caring for both moms during there most needed times of there lives/ I took care of both moms as a daughter and a nurse which is the career I chose because I am loyal, intelligent, compassionate and had the ability to medically care for them both during their dying hours. That was a gift for me. And brought me such joy. I don’t think there are too many people out there who had 2 moms that I was able to be both their private nurse and give them the love just pouring out of my veins from my heart forever and ever.”

Sincerely Catherine Regina Deasy, Florida USA

robindch

Dublin baby deaths may be examined by inquiry

http://www.herald.ie/news/dublin-baby-deaths-may-be-examined-by-inquiry-30338603.html

Herald wrote:

DEATH rates at a Dublin mother-and-baby home were almost as high as mortality rates at the Bon Secours home in Tuam, recently released records held by church authorities have revealed. The Dublin death rates are coming to light as official inquiries by gardai and a number of Government departments get underway into the deaths of almost 800 children at the Tuam home in a 36-year period ending in 1961.

Documents that belonged to former Dublin Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who died in 1973, show that St Patrick’s mother and baby home at Pelletstown in Cabra also had high death rates in at least one year. The records show that one in every three babies died in the home on the Navan road in 1933. The Pelletstown death rate was 34pc in that year while, at the same 
time, the annual death rate in the County Galway convent-run home in Tuam was 35pc. The Dublin deaths may also come under official scrutiny now.

Even higher death rates were recorded that year at the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork (39pc), and at the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home in Roscrea, Co Tipperary (37.5pc). An inter-departmental group has already met to discuss how a wide-ranging inquiry should proceed into infant deaths at all mother and baby homes which operated in Ireland for several decades.

The group consisted of representatives from five Government departments - Health, Children, Justice, Social Protection and Environment. The examination will be spearheaded by the Department of Health and the group is expected to report back to the Cabinet in a fortnight with recommendations on the formation of a high-powered inquiry. The Cabinet will then decide if a full Commission of Investigation should be set up and what remit and powers it should be given.

Two senior gardai have also been tasked to carry out a fact-finding mission into the 796 deaths at the Tuam home between 1925 and 1961. They will seek to examine the facts behind reports that hundreds of babies and children were buried near a disused septic tank at the home, which has been closed for more than a half century. The gardai will be expected to gather all surviving records, including the home’s admissions ledgers and all death certificates relating to residents.

There have been no records come to light, as yet, of burials in local cemeteries. Children’s death certificates cited many causes of death, including malnutrition, measles and tuberculosis. Any testing of the burial site on the lands of the former home will involve forensic investigation of any skeletons as the site is very close to a mass grave of famine victims who died in the mid-19th century. There were emotional scenes last night as locals gathered outside the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home for a memorial service in Cork.

However, a Government source warned that any wide-ranging commission of inquiry cannot interfere with garda investigations. “But it is not a question of if’ there will be an inquiry but rather when’ and how far will its remit will go,” the senior source said.

The operation of mother and baby homes from the 1920s to 1960s is regarded as the last of Ireland’s Church-linked scandals. The planned Government probe will be complicated by the fact the mother and baby homes issue involves secret vaccine trials in the 1930s-50s, clandestine adoptions to wealthy Catholic families in the US and infant mortality rates of 55pc, six times that for Irish maternity facilities.

lazygal

I somehow doubt this will be the last of the church scandals in Ireland. The catholic church probably has a few more horrors tucked away to surprise us with.

eire4

lazygal wrote: »

I somehow doubt this will be the last of the church scandals in Ireland. The catholic church probably has a few more horrors tucked away to surprise us with.

Sadly your probably right. For one I would like to know who was the prelate who laughed at Mary McAleese about the state not going after their files.

robindch

The BBC looks into the ongoing scandal:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29307705

ScumLord

lazygal wrote: »

I somehow doubt this will be the last of the church scandals in Ireland. The catholic church probably has a few more horrors tucked away to surprise us with.

I'm sure the church has all sorts of scandals buried in their vaults under St Peter's in Vatican city. I don't think it's fair to lump all the churches problems on the Irish clergy, they weren't the only ones at this kind of stuff. If anything Ireland is probably ahead of the curve in that all the skeletons are coming out of the closet now. Other more corrupt and religious countries are probably still covering up their scandals.

Cabaal

ScumLord wrote: »

If anything Ireland is probably ahead of the curve in that all the skeletons are coming out of the closet now.

Ahead of the curve on the basis that people are not freely talking about the awful abuses.

But certainly not ahead of the curve when it comes to taking action, prosecutions, compensation for victims.

There are still plenty of people in Government who would rather protect and/or deflect away stuff away from the church.

Other more corrupt and religious countries are probably still covering up their scandals.

One of the worst of those being Vatican City?
They have the records, they just refuse to release them,

PopePalpatine

Given that Peter Turkson believes that paedophilia simply doesn't happen outside of the developed world, I'd say we'll start to hear the same scandals leak out of Africa, South/Latin America and the Philippines in a decade or so.

Cabaal

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/09/26/the-power-to-exhume/

Solicitor Kevin Higgins and blogger Izzy Kamikaze spoke to Philip Boucher-Hayes on RTÉ One’s Liveline this afternoon in relation to the Tuam Babies story.

During the segment, Mr Higgins pointed out that the Attorney General Máire Whelan has the power to order a coroner to hold inquests into the deaths of any remains exhumed at the Tuam site. He said if she chooses not to exercise this power, she will inevitably face a legal challenge.

Philip Boucher-Hayes: “Kevin, you believe that with the, sorry, no pun intended, with the digging, but the trawling that you have been doing through the archives and the documents and so on, that the legal argument now for exhuming whatever is buried in the ground at the site in Tuam, and for holding coroner’s inquests, that that could no longer be resisted.”

Kevin Higgins: “I think that’s is absolutely true. I think the evidence, including public records is such that there simply must be an excavation of the site in Tuam to establish the truth of what lies beneath. And, as you’re possibly aware, there is a very specific statutory provision which confers absolute discretion on the Attorney General. It is in fact Section 24 of Coroner’s Act 1962 and I’ll read it for you if you wish.”

Boucher-Hayes: “Oh, don’t do that. Put it into English, please.”

Higgins: “Well, actually, it’s in remarkably plain English, remarkably plain English. It says “Where the Attorney General has reason to believe that a person has died in circumstances which in his opinion make the holding of an inquest advisable he may direct any coroner to hold an inquest in relation to the death of that person”.”

Boucher-Hayes: “Ok so, basically, the Attorney General can tell a coroner to hold an inquest.”

Higgins: “Indeed, and can indeed nominate a coroner of his, or indeed as it is today, her choice. And the discretion is particular and specific to the Attorney. It’s without reference to any minister or office of the State. It is entirely, the matter entirely rests with her based on the information available to the Attorney.”

Later

Boucher-Hayes: “Is there, from what you’re hearing from Izzy and from what you’ve assembled yourself, are you absolutely sure, in your opinion, as a lawyer and as an officer of the courts that there is enough evidence there to warrant the Attorney General going, taking on board what is going to be an immensely upsetting exercise for an awful lot of people living in that area, digging up what is under there and conducting inquests on the remains of God knows how many countless infant bodies.”

Higgins: “Yes, I do. I do think the evidence is overwhelming and I do believe that the Attorney will be inevitably confronted. I, like everybody else, I have regard for the Attorney’s experience as a lawyer and as a public official and I’m sure that she is aware of the powers she possesses under this section. I’ve no doubt that she is also a Galway woman and I imagine that perhaps gives her an additional interest. This is not very many miles from her own family home. The evidence, quite frankly, Philip is indeed overwhelming. It really is a matter of when this site, perhaps the first of many, is excavated and the manner in which it is undertaken.”

Later

Higgins: “I do believe the Attorney General is giving attention in this matter, I believe that she is acutely aware of the situation in the Mother and Baby Homes. This is inevitable because the Commission of Inquiry has been set up. I have no doubt that it is a matter of immediate concern to the Attorney’s office, inevitably, because of her role. I believe that she is, as I said, quite aware of the, of the discretion which she enjoys under Section 24 of the 1962 [Coroner's] Act and I have every confidence that that matter is being actively looked at. I think if the, if there is any, if it comes into the public domain that the Attorney has considered the matter under Section 24 and decided not to exercise that discretion she enjoys, I do believe that the likelihood will be a legal challenge to that. I would very much hope that the Attorney would take the view that the exhumation, in the first instance, of the infants at Tuam is something which should be done in the public interest and would be a very proper exercise of her power.”

listen here http://www.rte.ie/radio1/liveline/

aloyisious

Ta Cabaal, better read.

secondrowgal

Where are all the apologists now? After this and after that horrific documentary by Sixsmith (sp??) last week? I was hopping mad watching that!!

Cabaal

secondrowgal wrote: »

Where are all the apologists now? After this and after that horrific documentary by Sixsmith (sp??) last week? I was hopping mad watching that!!

They're still around, they are just choosing not to post right now.

The Black Oil

WTF?

https://twitter.com/Boglawyer/status/520179400969834496

Nodin

Turns out Terry Crone didn't succeed.

"Ms Weber’s documentary will be shown on France 3, the same network whose TV documentary Les Blanchisseuses de Magdalen (1998) inspired the making of The Magdalene Sisters (2002)."
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/10/10/reputable-history/

Afaik, that agency was responsible for the 'those were different times/we didn't know' line the church has been so fond of.

Hotblack Desiato

How does she sleep?

(caution, very naughty word just after 1:30)

robindch

A curious story from Switzerland showing that the Swiss may not have cared for some kids any more than many religious did in Ireland:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623