Mass unmarked grave for 800 babies in Tuam

recedite

The Bishop seems a bit peeved that the infants were allowed onto consecrated ground in the first place.

Bishop Brendan Leahy said: “While we have not been able to get all the detail we would have wished due to the inadequacy of records, the process has, at least, brought to our attention the burial in consecrated grounds of these infants.

I'm guessing that they were being brought there by some nun in the maternity hospital who didn't agree with the RC doctrine that these innocents were unworthy of being in the cemetery, and were going to end up in limbo. As a result there would be nothing on the official maps and the plot would appear in all the documentation to be vacant land. Even though the old gravedigger guy knew, he would not necessarily be in communication with the office workers. So the council may have sold the plots later while being unaware of the situation on (in) the ground.

Cabaal

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2015/10/12/meanwhile-in-tuam-3/

Last Friday, forensic archaeologists carried out a geophysical survey at the former site of the Tuam mother and baby home in Galway, where it is feared 796 children are buried.

The results of the survey, carried out at the behest of Judge Yvonne Murphy who is overseeing the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, are not yet known.

In yesterday’s Irish Mail on Sunday, journalist Alison O’Reilly, who originally broke the story about the Tuam mother and baby home, reported a stand-off between the graveyard committee in Tuam and the families of babies who allegedly died there.

The graveyard committee doesn’t want any excavation to take place while the families feel, if they’re ever to find out what happened the children, the site must be excavated.

Further to this…

You may recall a special investigation in June, by Irish Examiner journalist Conall Ó Fátharta, into the Tuam mother and baby home in Galway which was ran by the Bon Secours Order of nuns.

Mr Ó Fátharta discovered that two years before historian Catherine Corless, in 2014, raised fears that nearly 800 infants may have been buried in an unmarked mass grave at the home, in 2012, a HSE West social worker had expressed concerns that up to 1,000 children might have been trafficked to the US from the home in “a scandal that dwarfs other, more recent issues with the Church and State”.

The social worker came to the conclusion after she examined both the Tuam and Bessborough mother and baby homes while preparing material for the Magdalene laundries inquiry in 2012, led by Martin McAleese. The details were not included in the McAleese report.

Her reports into both of the homes noted the number of deaths recorded at the homes and proposed the possibility that death certificates might have been falsified in order for children to be “brokered into clandestine adoptions”.

in a number of cases, that the nuns continued to demand a maintenance payment from families when the child was either dead or had gone elsewhere.”

recedite

Also from that article;

Fine Gael’s James Reilly paid The Communications Clinic nearly €60,000 between 2012 and 2014 – out of the Oireachtas fund, called the Special Secretarial Allowance (SSA). In addition, readers may also recall how two weeks after Catherine Corless’ concerns about Tuam were reported in the Irish Mail on Sunday, on May 25, 2014, media queries to the Bon Secours nuns were suddenly fielded by The Communications Clinic.

Its scandalous that the current govt. has so recently been spending public money on spin doctors to keep a lid on this issue, instead of investigating it properly on behalf of the public.

lazygal

http://www.thejournal.ie/terry-prone-email-tuam-babies-site-1721252-Oct2014/

Almost exactly a year ago.

Going Strong

I see the poor nuns in Bessborough are under fire again for being bad at maths.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/bessborough-mother-and-baby-home-order-reported-80-more-infant-deaths-to-state-than-were-on-death-register-363863.html

Bessborough Mother and Baby Home: Order reported 80 more infant deaths to State than were on death register

The discrepancy in the recording of deaths comes just months after the Irish Examiner revealed that an unpublished 2012 internal HSE report raised concerns that death records were falsified in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home so children could “be brokered in clandestine adoption arrangements” at home and abroad.

Hotblack Desiato

Going Strong wrote: »

I see the poor nuns in Bessborough are under fire again for being bad at maths.

They were never taught how to count babies, just money.

robindch

The Daily Mail - apologies for the link - publishes extracts from a set of recordings by Julia Devaney who spent 36 years living, then working, in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

The tapes have been transcribed by Catherine Corless, the local historian who first brought events there to the surface. It's nasty stuff.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374922/The-house-tears-Secret-tapes-woman-spent-years-controversial-Irish-home-unmarried-mothers-reveals-unmarked-mass-grave-children.html

whatismyname

robindch wrote: »

The Daily Mail - apologies for the link - publishes extracts from a set of recordings by Julia Devaney who spent 36 years living, then working, in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

The tapes have been transcribed by Catherine Corless, the local historian who first brought events there to the surface. It's nasty stuff.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374922/The-house-tears-Secret-tapes-woman-spent-years-controversial-Irish-home-unmarried-mothers-reveals-unmarked-mass-grave-children.html

Very enlightening.

The Black Oil

There is a deep sense of shame running through that article. Sad.

Baggy Trousers

http://www.galwayindependent.com/news/topics/articles/2015/12/30/4111870-one-womans-quest-to-get-to-the-truth-of-the-tuam-home/

Bridget stated that the toddlers’ diet was very inadequate with sloppy
porridge for breakfast, mushy potatoes for lunch and bread soaked in milk for
dinner. Although the Home had a vegetable garden and kept pigs, chickens and
hens, the children were never allocated any of this protein. A lot of the
mothers were depressed, they were not allowed to talk while feeding their baby
or to talk during meals. When Bridget experienced labour pains at 3am one early
morning she was brought to the Maternity Unit at the back of the Home. A nurse
examined her and she was then left on her own until 2pm the next day, as she
said herself “to get on with it”. She got no comfort from anyone or no pain
relief. After the birth she was kept in the ward for 10 days. Bridget stated
also that they were allowed to write home once a month but the letters were
always censored. Bridget remained for a year at the Home, but then had to part
with her daughter and head off to England to make a new life for herself.

Catherine Corless deserves more recognition for her tireless work.

The flying mouse

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0930/820485-tuam-home/


A preliminary excavation is to take place at the site of a former mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

The tests were requested by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, which was established following allegations about the deaths of 800 babies and the manner in which they were buried in Tuam.

News of the survey has been welcomed by relatives.

An update on this tragic story of Irelands hidden past.

Hotblack Desiato

The timing is instructive. When there was an election in the offing - suppress all RC church scandal. Enda must be confident enough of getting this budget through without drama.

Dick phelan

What can actually happen after an inquiry, sadly i see nobody ever getting any sort of prosecution for this or the state will be held responsible and have to pay compensation or something, the church just like the magdalene laundries the church will likely pay nothing, boils the blood just thinking about it.

Cabaal

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/10/18/tuam-it-concerns-2/

The excavation of a the possible site of a mass grave in the grounds of the Tuam Mother and Baby home has begun.

But have they identified the right plot?

A few weeks ago, I was happy to hear an excavation was starting at the site of the Mother & Baby Home in Tuam.

Then I saw where the hoarding went up.

I have information that suggests they’re digging in the wrong place and I know the Commission of Inquiry into Mother & Baby Homes has that information too.

It’s hard to know how to react. I struggled with feelings of powerlessness and despair. Is the hoarding in the wrong place accidentally or on purpose?

Whose interests does it serve? In a country that ‘apologises’ to Magdalene women, then tries to swindle them out of the medical care they were promised, the line between conspiracy and cock up is very hard to find.

…When corruption at the top gets to people at the bottom of the pile, it tells us we don’t matter. We might see what’s happening, but we can’t change anything, we’re too small and unimportant.

Nobody will believe us. Nobody will hear us. There’s nothing we can do. If the people at the top don’t want change and the people at the bottom think they can’t make change, then change doesn’t happen. That’s how the country that once led the world in locking up inconvenient people becomes the world leader in letting sleeping dogs lie.

The time for letting sleeping dogs lie at Tuam is over.

We’re meant to feel powerless, but we are not powerless.

[Historian] Catherine Corless, who documented 796 deaths at the Tuam Children’s Home, is not powerless.

Adopted people denied information about their origins are not powerless. Women whose children were taken are not powerless. We can expose what’s hidden. We can make change.

One way we can make change is to appeal to those who do have power and to do so publicly. We can make it impossible for people in power to say they didn’t know what was going on and what they needed to do to put it right.

So, I’ve written a letter to Katherine Zappone, who’s currently the Minister for Children, but I’ve also written it to you. In it, I tell her (and you) that

Witness descriptions of burials at Tuam confirm there is more than one burial site.

One witness description of burials closely matches disused sewage tanks below the site (formerly a 19th century workhouse.) These tanks are outside the area being investigated.

Witness descriptions of a second burial site may describe either a section of the 19th century sewage system or the 20th century septic tank which replaced it. Only the 20th century tank is within the area being investigated.

An area which may contain burials is under an access laneway used by cars. This may be destroying evidence and is also potentially dangerous to drivers and pedestrians.

If underground structures at the site in Tuam were not properly treated when the housing estate was built, there is serious risk of them collapsing, causing injury or death to users of the area which includes a children’s playground.

Failure to find bodies at Tuam, or to find the number of bodies there should be (which is in excess of 800) may indicate that deaths were falsified in order to facilitate illegal adoptions.

It’s a long letter [full text below], but easy to read, so put the kettle on and make some time. Come back to it later, if you need to.

But please don’t read this just as an appeal to the power of the Minister. It’s an appeal to your personal power, the power they try to make you believe you don’t have.

Fr0g

robindch wrote: »

The Daily Mail - apologies for the link - publishes extracts from a set of recordings by Julia Devaney who spent 36 years living, then working, in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home.

The tapes have been transcribed by Catherine Corless, the local historian who first brought events there to the surface. It's nasty stuff.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3374922/The-house-tears-Secret-tapes-woman-spent-years-controversial-Irish-home-unmarried-mothers-reveals-unmarked-mass-grave-children.html

"We were allowed to go out and vote, we were told who to vote for. We were told to vote for Fianna Fáil, of course."

Speaks volumes - a quid pro quo arrangement. The religious were always part of Fianna Fails core vote.

magicbastarder

Tuam babies: 'Significant quantities' of human remains discovered at excavation site

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/tuam-babies-significant-quantities-of-human-remains-discovered-at-excavation-site-35498856.html

Neyite

So that now they have remains, the sisters of the order from that time period who are still living will presumably be questioned by Gardai?

CptMackey

Neyite wrote: »

So that now they have remains, the sisters of the order from that time period who are still living will presumably be questioned by Gardai?

I wouldn't hold my breath . Time for bes borough to be examined now too

Cabaal

I've both heard and read people claiming Catherine Corless claims were false and untrue, I;m conflicted, in one way this is deeply sad but in another I'm, glad to see she was proven right with the hard evidence of the crimes of the church. They thought so little about baby's that they disposed of their body's in a ****en septic tank!

pH

I have a question.

Let's say Ireland had a birth rate of approx 60,000 children per year.
We know from historical figures that the still birth rate (pre modern medical care) was slightly under 10% of the live birth rate.

So let's say that pre modern healthcare and hospital delivery we're looking at 5,000 still births per year, delivered by the local midwife or the family themselves, in houses, farmhouses and cottages throughout Ireland over hundreds of years.

Where do we think those little babies ended up? What do we think was the standard practice was when a midwife had a stillborn child child in her hands?

I admit the whole 'sceptic' tank thing seems a bit callous, but is there any evidence that the corpses at this particular home were dealt with in a manner completely at odds to what was happening in the rest of the country at the time?

Neyite

pre-baptised babies were buried by the hospitals in Angel plots. That's not without a lot of controversy these days either.

However the age range in skeletal remains from this mass grave would suggest that many if not most of these were actually baptised children and therefore should have been accorded the Last Rites and dignified burial in consecrated ground following a Catholic funeral mass for their soul. A simple cross or headstone would have been a nice touch too from these Sisters of Mercy.

If the nuns thought there was nothing wrong with using a spare underground sewer as a crypt, why are there no nuns buried there? That says it all about the attitude the community had towards the children they were supposed to be guardians of.

pH

Neyite wrote: »

pre-baptised babies were buried by the hospitals in Angel plots. That's not without a lot of controversy these days either.

However the age range in skeletal remains from this mass grave would suggest that many if not most of these were actually baptised children and therefore should have been accorded the Last Rites and dignified burial in consecrated ground following a Catholic funeral mass for their soul. A simple cross or headstone would have been a nice touch too from these Sisters of Mercy.

If the nuns thought there was nothing wrong with using a spare underground sewer as a crypt, why are there no nuns buried there? That says it all about the attitude the community had towards the children they were supposed to be guardians of.

Yes, baptised souls of 2-3 years of age, not given a proper burial by these religious nutters does seem a little strange and worrying.

But are you telling me, in Ireland pre hospital delivery, that there was practice of shipping still born corpses to be buried in 'angel plots' in nearby hospitals? How common was this practice? What percentage of home still births went to these plots?

I would just like to be 100% sure that the casual (and callous to our eyes) disposal of still born corpses in a convenient hole in the ground wasn't the absolute norm in Ireland at the time.

Neyite

Unbaptised babies went to limbo, therefore the thinking of the time was that they could not be buried in a consecrated graveyard.

If it was a home birth, they were buried usually in Cillín which were usually sited near to a graveyard or as near as possible.

If the birth happened in a hospital then it was usually an Angel Plot.

But it's worth nothing that in all Catholic hospitals if a baby was poorly and not expected to survive there would be an emergency baptism there and then. I was one of those, baptised by a nun who was a midwife, baptised at only a few minutes old. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Catholicism allows for anybody to baptise anyone in an emergency if they wish. I'll check that out though. [edit -here it is!] http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu641.htm - according to that, you don't even need to be a Catholic to baptise someone into the faith.

However, regardless of how worthless the dead may have been to the nuns if unbaptised, it remains a fact that even back then, burial records were required to be maintained. Even at the very least, I'm sure it was never allowed that you can decide where to be buried or bury someone wherever you like - there are environmental and health hazards to be considered. Eg, if that underground crypt got filled up during flooding that polluted water could get into the water supply.

jimgoose

Neyite wrote: »

...But it's worth nothing that in all Catholic hospitals if a baby was poorly and not expected to survive there would be an emergency baptism there and then. I was one of those, baptised by a nun who was a midwife, baptised at only a few minutes old. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Catholicism allows for anybody to baptise anyone in an emergency if they wish. I'll check that out though.

That is true. In fact, according to Benedict XIV a midwife can even baptize in utero, including with the aid of an instrument, provided the baptismal water can reach some part of the baby.

recedite

I don't think the septic tank thing has been resolved yet, ie whether it was a sewer or not at the time the bodies were disposed of.

For me, the main issue is the neglect experienced by these kids while they were alive. The nuns were receiving money from families, from the state, and from the USA for the sale of babies. Yet the babies and children were undoubtably dying (in atypical numbers, even for that time period) from neglect, disease and malnutrition.

Baptism is easy. They were badly treated because they were born "out of wedlock" not because they were unbaptised.

The place seems to have been run like one of those neglectful puppy farms we sometimes hear about nowadays when they get discovered.
Where was all the money being syphoned off to? Did any go to the bishops palace, or to the Vatican?

We are probably going to see a lot of hypocrisy emerging now too. People who ordinarily would have no problem with a near full term foetus being aborted and binned, will be complaining bitterly at the thoughts of 1930's "babies" not receiving a proper burial at the hands of the church.

And people who turn out to be long lost relatives of the "babies" suddenly developing an interest and wanting to be put on a pedestal. Maybe they are even in with a chance to get some compo for their emotional distress.

Neyite

I think it might have been a disused sewerage system at the time.

Bristolscale7

pH wrote: »

Yes, baptised souls of 2-3 years of age, not given a proper burial by these religious nutters does seem a little strange and worrying.
.

They weren't 'religious nutters.' They were bog-standard nuns and there's still too many of them.

BlinkingLights

I was never religious but I formally defected from the Catholic Church, when it was still possible a few years ago, because of these kinds of horrific incidents.

There's only so much tiptoeing around these subjects that I could do. This kind of horror just goes against every fibre of my being, everything I believe and everything I stand for and I just couldn't allow myself to be counted amongst the 'flock'. So, I defected and told them precisely why.

These things happened because people didn't stand up and allowed themselves to be bullied and horrific abuses to be covered up.

It's a profound failure of the organisation and absolutely unbelievable levels of corruption that allowed these things to happen.

Corruption doesn't have to be about money. It was deceit, lawbreaking, non-enforcement, blind-eye-turning, and behaving in a way that was so two-faced, and so contrary to the message they preached.

aloyisious

Regardless of the system's operational status, the fact remains that it was used as a convenient location for the nuns to conceal the bodies. Were it to be found in council or the home records that the system was operational at the time then it would only damn the nuns and their order even further. The first could be described as unchristian, the second only as anti-christian. Looking at the deaths logbook shown on RTE news, one of the death entries seemed to be something declarable only by a qualified medical doctor.

shamrock55

**** this country and **** the church,they could have taught hitler and the nazis a thing or 2,how people can have anything to do with the catholic church is mind boggling,flocking to mass every sunday like dumb ****ing sheep bloody hypocrits