Gerry, any organisation involved would still be responsible – I’m surprised how many people seem to think that things should just blow over after a certain amount of time. The views of the Catholic Church which led to children being taken from their mothers and put in such homes are still held so the church have a responsibility for spreading these demoralising views of children.

Anyone saying “move on” regarding this needs to consider “what if that was my child, or actually, if it was me?”

The above comment is devious and evil. This is a crime scene. It needs normal police investigation to get at the truth. Evidence needs to be examined not covered up again as it has been in the past.

To what end , again no person will be made amenable , nothing will come from an investigation of the proportions being sought but new BMW’s for the ‘well in’ legal eagles . We already know the shameful truth, this unfortunately is only another episode , and no doubt there will be more, what is the point in marinating in this evil , thank god we have learned from other , caces, surely no one believes this could occur again, so yes I say ” move on” spend the money more wisely , on a memorial, or on the needy children of today, do not turn this into a barrister fattening excercise, you mite as well re open the Jack the Ripper file, at beat all you will end up with is a name, or many many names in thus Tuam case.

Makes you think what else has been swept under the carpet…

Gill, surely you’re overstepping the line here. the kids were neglected NOT murdered. we need to deal with thee facts not assumptions.

You are SOOOOOOOOOOOOO right Gerry C. the Fat Cats (who couldn’t give a flying toss about the suffering & pain of these Mums & babies) are rubbing their gtubbly little claws together at the thought of the monitary killing (no pun on words meant) it would bring them. it would be nothing more than an expensive ‘Cat Fattening’ ‘ gluttonous exercise paid for by the hard working Tax Payers’. put the money that would be spent in yet another useless investigation into Food Banks or something useful for under priviliged children.

Their death Certs says some died from malnutrition , it’s a crime not to give a person a decent burial you count being thrown in a septic tank as a decent burial ciaran

You could say that about ANY mass grave, Ciaran, before it is excavated.

Hi Ciaran. I didn’t compare the causes of death of those who died in the respective graves. I made no comment on how the children in Tuam died. However the physical or forensic situations would be similar and would, in my opinion, need specialist investigators. So it was their skills that I was emphasising, not making a direct comparison of the causes of death.

Ciaran Tuam is not a mass grave. It is 800 children’s bodies dumped in a septic tank – a container for faeces- by evil monsters masquerading as Brides of Christ

@seamus mcdermott

The babies whose bodies were buried in the Tuam grave died over a period of 36 years. If they had been the victims of a massacre, they would have died in one day.

Ciaran if it happened over a hundred years it does nt matter it is the same practice the nazi carried out just cause their parents were nt married they were allowed to be used for medical experiment s to be sold to the highest bidder left to die and then thrown in a septic tank

Ciaranm, it isn’t so much the fact that they died. It is how they were disposed of and the lack of records indicating who they were and where they were burried suggesting that this was a crime worthy of further investigation.

Wonder was the septic tank ever “consecrated ground”? if not,it cant be claimed to be a christian burial site,ergo its a crime scene with possible murder victime.
Yeah the last thing we need is the Gaurds or any Irish public body investigating this.Pots of money for those involved,delays,obfustications and willfull delays by those that are still adherents to the Catholic dictatorship and are its agent provoctuers,namely civil servants and Gardai and legal professions that are members of such organisations like Opus Dei,Kinghts of Colambanus and Legion of Mary.All that a report can be issued proably 20 years from now saying ;
“Well sure all those involved are dead now,so no point in prosecuting them,and shure there’s nothing we can do for them poor kids bar stick an aul plaque up for their memory.No one is at fault or to blame,lets move on.And here’s our bill Mr and Mrs Irish taxpayer .150 million plus VAT.Cash would be grand thanks !”
We need a ruthless CSI team from the UN or wherever with full authorithy to delve into graves ,records and issue a factual report and then we need to hunt down and bring to justice ANY priest or nun still alive who knew about or was involved in these homes and aided and abeted in these deaths.If the Germans can hunt down and prosecute men in their 90s for being camp gaurds in the concentration camps,there should be no reason we cant do the same to our genocidal clergy.

Children in the Church’s care dying of malnutrition; and the wealth of the Church. It really is grotesque.

“Mother Teresa” use to not give dying children pain relieving medicatoin because she believed the pain brought them closer to ‘God’. This really is a vile institution.

I see your at it again on this thread Ciaran!! There are many words to describe people like you who constantly defend the vile organisation responsible for these and countless other disgraceful disgusting acts and my decency prevents me from writing them here.

The kidnap, rape and neglectful killing and mass burial of innocent children and babies is the worst crimes possible for humans to inflict on other humans. You can try to defend that all you like but believe me that says more about the person you are than anything else! There is nothing you can say, there is no defense!!!

To be totally honest people like you who pretend to have any level of intelligence and yet defend the RCC sicken me to the pit of my stomach, it’s disgusting and not worthy of my recognition of time!! I’m done!

Well said , we certainly don’t want , church lackie’s investigate their masters, and the priviledged few get rich on the proceeds, of sweeping the bull dust under the carpet, There will be no justice.
their will be no punishment, The monster that is the church will survive, and continue to devour the children of Ireland, by way of indoctrinational bull dust. not the teachings of the BIBLE. but the subjugation by corrupt doctrine , that is the catholic church of Ireland.

@Enda Nolan

” it is the same practice the nazi carried out just cause their parents were nt married they were allowed to be used for medical experiment s to be sold to the highest bidder left to die and then thrown in a septic tank”

I’m aware of the vaccine trials but there is no evidence that these trials caused death or harm to any of the children who were injected with experimental vaccines. The purpose was to create life-saving medicine. It’s not like the children were injected with anthrax. Therefore, it’s much less serious than what Dr Mengele did.

You’re actually defending testing experimental vaccines on children? Sure they were only the ‘illegitimate’ children of ‘fallen women’ , like their mothers they were an expendable source of income for the church.

Ciaran they were kids that’s all they were babies that done no harm are you for real

@Kelly Davis-Jordan

I’m not condoning the vaccine trials. I said that there’s no evidence that the trials caused death or harm to the children. It’s not like they were injected with anthrax or cut open.

@Enda Nolan

Unlawful burial is still less serious than murder or manslaughter.

@Enda Nolan

What evidence is there that the vaccine trials caused harm to the children?

Talking sense there man….

Sorry- I missed something here- what’s the story with the vaccine trials?

@PåddÿGooner.

I was not defending crimes against children. I was merely saying that there is no evidence that the 796 babies in Tuam did not die of natural causes.

Your rant against the Church would not have been out of place in Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989.

“Unlawful burial is still less serious than murder or manslaughter.”

I think you’re setting the bar a bit low there Ciarán.

@Mal

“I think you’re setting the bar a bit low there Ciarán.”

Absolutely not. Unlawful burial or preventing lawful burial wouldn’t necessarily lead to a custodial sentence. The Mothers Superior would have instructed that the bodies be buried in that area and are probably deceased. Therefore, it would be unfair to punish the subordinate nuns, many of whom were novices at the time, given the culture of obedience that exists in religious orders.

Dean, as i read the facts (and correct me if you have facts that supersede mine) that there are about 22 skeletons in what was a septic tank before the building became a home for ‘ Mothers & Babies’. there is no record of the other 774 bodies. we don’t know as yet where they are buried or disposed of . we know they died infantgood & childhood from the death records. they might be buried in the grounds, but until we find them, we can’t say there are 796 skeletons in that septic tank. we need to deal with facts not assumptions.

Reading some comments on various American Catholic fourms on the Tuam case to see their reaction.
Telling people not to read the articles as they are only Catholic Bashing.
Unbelievable ignorance and arrogance.

It is catholic bashing but they deserve to be bashed!

The I – own – ya will probably release a statement saying they are not homophobic and that they mourn the loss of all the babies in the sh*t tank .Even the gay babies. And then one of them will say ‘Did anyone think of Maddie? ‘

Ian- can you give some examples of these articles- i’d be interested to see them..

@Michelle Mc Loughney

None of the recent deaths of children in care was caused by social workers. Those deaths were caused by unlawful killing by third parties, suicide, overdose and accidents.

Ciaran, I fully agree. My point was that 115 child deaths while in care between 2002-2012 is well above the national average when looking at child deaths in the general population. I’m sure social workers didn’t have a hand in the deaths. And would never even hint at that. As I’m sure social workers didn’t personally have an involvement in the Tuam deaths. But, as a society we are culpable for ignoring shocking reports when we choose. And then being shocked as an after-thought.

@Michelle Mc Loughney

I don’t believe that ordinary people wilfully ignore these reports. The burial of the bodies of the children who died at Tuam in a septic tank is horrific but it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were murdered. It is reasonable for ordinary people to trust the authorities to act appropriately. To blame the public amounts to collective punishment.

Horrific crimes were committed against the vulnerable in Ireland when the Church ran the country but there were no gas chambers or mass executions.

Exactly Michelle, and in 30 years time there will be the same insincere socially expedient hand wringing about what we know is CURRENTLY happeing & allowed to happen within our Social Services. kids don’t take overdoses or commit suicide becasue they are loved – they do so coz they don’t get the appropriate help & this is their only way out. yes, hypocrites all round & couldn’t care less attitudes by those with the power to do something positive ( both present & past ) is responsible for the present & past atrocities.

All it takes for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing.

Your view is too simplistic Ciaran. There were nearly 200,000 people in mental institutions at one point in the 20th century. The families committed them.

This whole period was pitch black. It is too easy to look for scapegoats. I nearly died of neglect while in foster care before I was adopted and was extremely sick when my parents collected me.

I know quite a lot about this time and the system. It was systemic. Catholic mores and values (and to that extent the institutional church) were an intrinsic catalytic element of this but people were still stealing, killing, blackguarding and committing so called adultery. People ignored teaching around contraception through the 70s and 80s until things changed with Brendan Smyth and the fallout since then.

This was systemic and permeated all walks and life and all elements of society. There were protestant homes as well and they do not have a clean bib either. There is so much more to come out on how the vulnerable and downtrodden were treated in homes and state run asylums in the last century. This is the tip of an iceberg – I urge you not to over react.

If you want somebody to blame look at a map of Ireland.

Sorry that was last comment was directed at Enda not Ciaran.

The reason parents disowned their daughters was because of the catholic church’s perverse teachings on sex and human sexuality.
Robespierre the ones who need investigating and prosecution are the catholic church because they have consistently lied and hidden their nefarious activities. The British Royals may have had Victorian mores but protestant British society began to evolve and mature both before and after the Second World War. Ireland didn’t because if the stranglehold of the catholic church

@Dean Anderson

Love conquers all. The fact that these parents disowned their daughters shows that they didn’t truly love them to begin with.

It was social workers of the state responsible for adoption from 1963 onwards. It is the state that denies people access to their records and identity.

It was familes to committed women to magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and asylums.

The health system, justice system and education system was often complicit in this.

My point is that people ignored dogma in other parts of their lives. Catholic dogma does not explain this on its own. That is far too simplistic an argument. It is part of the picture. A significant part of the picture but it is definitely not the only part.

The orders were paid the average industrial wage for every mother / baby in their care at the time. The state knew who was in the homes as the orders were paid for this.

Doctors and nurses attended many parts of the home. Many people left these homes and lived in communities like Tuam. You are deluding yourself if you think society has not got a greater role to play in this.

You would feel differently if you were somebody’s “dirty little secret” like I am. Obviously I am more than that but I feel strongly that this is a systemic issue. Society and its organs of state including the influence of the church colluded in this.
I

Robespierre, you seem to be suggesting that Victorians were cruel people, but how is it that there are no such burials like this recorded in Britain. The fact is that the new Irish state colluded with the Catholic church to deal with this as it saw fit and has nothing to do with Victorian values. These were the values that the irish state brought about in a post colonial ireland of brushing problems under the carpet. Little has changed in the meantime….

The British royals had Victorian morals??In public maybe but from pre world war 1 onwards ,they have had nothing but sexual deivants,bigamists,incest,homosexuals,drug and alcohol addicts and utter lunatics in the house of Windsor.Not saying this in any anti British way ,but by simply looking at their own history and public knowledge.

Even if we allow for the unlikely scenario that each of the children came from families that didn’t love them, that they were shunned from an intolerant and uncaring community, shouldn’t that make the way they were subsequently treated by the church even more abhorrent? Shouldn’t the nuns have loved and cared for such unfortunate children ten fold? Aren’t the church supposed to be the very authority on how to love the poor and unwanted? Regardless of the familial situation of these babies, they shouldn’t have been thrown into a septic tank by evil b*stards claiming the moral high ground.

Of course it’s abhorent. The neglect was abhorent. How they ended up and the fact that they ended up in a mass burial in a septic tank is abhorent.

It was an institutional process of which the religious were a large part that enabled this. There was also a society that looked the other way.

Wait til we get to the mental asylums.

Look up the case of Anne Lovett in Granard if you think this is the dim and distant past. Anne Lovett ended up bleeding out in a graveyard in Roscommon because of society and its mores. The person that got her pregnant was known in the community. That was the 1980s.

Ragnar, you only have to look at today’s society to see all of the people you describe and it has absolutely nothing to do with Victorian morals This was an irish state corrupted by the catholic church and government allowing people to be sectioned as it saw fit.

You’re missing the point. My reference to Victorian morals was of course in reference to workhouses. The home in Tuam was a former workhouse.

The crossover I referred to was where the Catholic occupation of such homes to repress the immoral replaced the State’s use of the same homes to vindictively suppress the poor.

I was referring to the austere interpretation of how one helps the meek. By punishment.

The Irish state chose to continue this oppression.

Granard is a town in North Co. Longford

Longford yes, thanks for the correction. The point stills stands.

The Anne Lovett case is a useful reminder of how society wrings it hands and looks for convenient scapegoats.

Just like with these homes. There were Dail debates in the early 1930s on the mortality rates in these homes.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/1934/02/07/00036.asp#N34

Look at the entry by Dr. Ward about 2/3rd’s of the way down in relation to mortality rates in these homes.

Ciaran, these parents didn’t disown their children, no more than women in Saudi refuse to drive – their spirits were absolutely crushed by the church, a church which even today holds the following view regarding some children:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P43.HTM

People knew no different – they were forced into order by the church, and those who refused were ostracised by the church and the community at large who were themselves keeping in order.

The church hadn’t this excuse – they had nobody to tell them what to do. You need your head examined if you think these people “disowned” their children. Yes, if you or me were in this situation now we’d be kicking and screaming, but back then that just couldn’t happen – it wasn’t an option.

I can explain it further with more examples but I’ll assume you’re not that stupid.

@Chris Kirk it actually has alot to do with “Victorian morals” as there was no such thing in the first place. Victorian morality was utter hyprocrisy in the UK and in their upper classes.They were just as debauched as any other era of society but preached this utter codswallop code about purity and chastity and the evils of just about everything to the lower classes as a way of societial control.But if you were Lord Snooty it was quite acceptable for young gentlemen to sow their wild oats with the lower class scullery maid.Chanfge that to respectable Irish family doctors son and a way to deal with the scandal of him having a dalliance with Brigid the parlour maid.
Ever wonder WHERE the Catholic dictatorship got its ideas from,they preached against just every vice mentioned and adapted most of the Victorian moral code.
However,like the Germans who lived beside Dachau and claimed it was a sausage factory burning offal as to explain the smell of mass corpse burning,but were told to shut up if they knew whats good for them.We in ireland are just as compliict in these atrocities by allowing another army of occupation that has been here longer than “The English” ever were to influence us from crale to grave for the last 1000 years.Namely the army of the Vatican..We gave these people too much power in our lives and must now start throwing them out of our lives no matter what.

@Paul Minogue

It’s not like the parents of these women would have been executed or imprisoned for not sending their daughters to Magdalene laundries or mother-and-baby homes. The worst that would have happened to parents who didn’t send their daughters to these places would have been that they would have been subject to verbal insults by some local people.

Many people chose to defer to the Church. It’s not like they would have been dragged into a car, driven into an isolated field, shot in the back of head and dumped in a ditch for questioning the Church.

Furthermore, the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement raised hell about the ban on artificial contraception during the 1970s but didn’t speak out about the women who were incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes.

@ Paul / Ciaran

Around this time (1920s – 1960s) you had mostly had two choices. Mostly in rural Ireland there was no choice but to comply with the culture of the fallen woman with the poor women being sent to laundries (mostly the very poor) or these homes where money was paid to support the mother and baby (in addition to the state paying for these facilities).

The other choice was to be a PFI (pregnant from Ireland) where you renounced claim to your daughter and were delivered in the UK and given for adopt

ion to UK/US/Australian families.

A third choice where the state wasn’t involved was to either have the birth concealed within the family and for the baby (sometimes a home birth with relatives in England) to be brought up as a younger sister or taken on because an “Aunt” died or couldn’t cope in UK because of work hours.

“It’s not like they would have been dragged into a car, driven into an isolated field, shot in the back of head and dumped in a ditch for questioning the Church.”

Not saying they would be, but given that 796 babies were dumped into a septic tank for less your assumption was just that.

“The worst that would have happened to parents who didn’t send their daughters to these places would have been that they would have been subject to verbal insults by some local people.”

4 years ago my mother’s cousin showed up at my aunt’s house. She was around 50 and up to that day we never knew she existed. It’s not my right to go into the finer details but my mother tried to convey to me what the influence of the church (especially in very rural areas where she grew up) was like when she was young. I don’t know how to convey to you what it would have felt like back then, but I’ll just say that verbal abuse and dislike from the church back then affected people much more than it does now. Women were under the impression their children needed to be taken away – they didn’t have the internet or access to an alternative view.

You’d like to think if you were back then you’d be the legend that would have stood up to the church but they’d have broke you down too, and me.

Ciaran, if I crowd fund you the money for a ticket to Saudi Arabia and a bottle of vodka would you go there to show how easy it is to stand up to a religious authority that truly has control over people and what they do?

@Paul Minogue

“if I crowd fund you the money for a ticket to Saudi Arabia and a bottle of vodka would you go there to show how easy it is to stand up to a religious authority that truly has control over people and what they do?”

If I did what you are suggesting I’d be imprisoned and possibly beheaded. There was no risk of being imprisoned or executed in Ireland for criticising the Church.

@Paul Minogue

“I’ll just say that verbal abuse and dislike from the church back then affected people much more than it does now.”

It was still less serious than being executed or imprisoned. Being subject to verbal abuse is pale by comparison with what happened to brother and sister Hans and Sophie Scholl.

Look, I’d like to think that if I was around back then and pressure was being put on a friend to give up a child I’d intervene and talk sense into people, and berate whoever is trying to take the child away – but I don’t think we can relate to what it was like then.

Why, in your mind do you think that so many single mothers back then gave up children? It was hardly just the “in thing” to do. Clearly there was a common reason for a lot of the cases – these women throughout the country had their liberty and voice taken away to such an extent that they’d actually give up their children.

It’s easy look back and say they weren’t going to be executed or imprisoned. If somebody who never killed pointed a gun at your head for example, I doubt you’d think “oh, it’s a threat – he never kills” – you’d likely be in fear, as would I. These women may not have been highly educated or given as much inspiration in their lives as the average person does today. They hadn’t the voice we have now.

Oh, and beating a woman was a lot less frowned upon back then too. I’m sure people heard plenty tales of women beaten senseless too back then – it was not as easy a time as it is now.

@Paul Minogue

“If somebody who never killed pointed a gun at your head for example, I doubt you’d think “oh, it’s a threat – he never kills” – you’d likely be in fear, as would I.”

No priest, monk or nun pointed a gun at anyone in Ireland.

@Paul Minogue

Beating a woman was – and still is – crime. Not even John Charles McQuaid would have thought it was OK for a man to hit a woman.

The gun was an analogy. Beating a woman was a crime then, but so what? – it happened more often and was less often reported – if you can’t pick up simple things like that it’s not worth my while discussing this any further with you and trying to get you to think from a different person’s point of view, in a different time.

You’ve a one note argument and you’re just repeating it over and again now. You don’t look young enough to be as shallow minded as you’re acting like so I can’t take your point seriously any more – you’re just looking for an argument I’d say. Enjoy the weekend.

Desmond Doyle proved in 1950s that one man could, with support, defeat the state’s Children’s act.

His story was imortalised in a film called “Evelyn”, by Brosnan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_%28film%29

It is possible to stand up to power and win.

Let’s keep at it……..

But don’t you find it even the least bit hypocritical that the church is so vehemently anti-abortion yet allowed born, sentient children to be neglected to death, raped and covered up the rape of children and imprisoned women who didn’t abide by their ‘morals’?
Sickening organisation should be tried for crimes against humanity yet we still allow them huge influence over our children.

Well said Damo

Saying all nuns constitute the purest form of evil is ridiculous. Just think about it for a minute.

If you think society didn’t have a greater role to play in asylums, mother and baby homes etc. then you need to read up on it more.

I am merely outlining what experts in this field have been saying and what I have found myself actively engaging for adoptive rights and doing research to that end. The blame for the system rests with people throughout society in many parts of the society. Not everybody did something but the system permeated throughout society and its culture.

But Irish society at the time got its rules directly from the Catholic church, the treatment of unmarried women and their children by wider society came from the ‘morals’ the church had indoctrinated them with. The state colluded with the church but they were also under the thumb of the church like everyone else. The church was directly responsible for attitudes towards unmarried women and their children at the time. The church is also directly responsible for the abuse and imprisonment of women and children. No doubt the politicians and Gardai and healthcare workers and the public largely ignored what was happening and were complicit in sending girls to these homes but it was Catholic nuns and clergy who abused, neglected and starved their ‘inmates’.

Kelly if the comment was to the effect that the systemic institutional abuse constituted pure evil I would have few qualms. The system was corrupt to the core.

That is very different to saying that the definition of evil at its most pure is any old nun.

Life is a symphony of grey and not the black and white of the cassock and collar.

I never said anything about nuns or evil, I said that the social morals of the day came directly from the church which had an iron grip on everything from state legislation to individual behaviour.

Paddy, there is NO evidence of murder. this is supposition. u can’t declare it a murder site. the cause of death has been recorded as a number of childhood diseases. of course malnutrition ( & by extension wilfull neglect) was a major factor in the premature deaths. also the overcrowding caused infectious disease to spread rampantly. there was NO vaccinations in those days.

Ireland was a very poor, post war, emerging nation, trying to get it together after 800 yrs of neglect by an Imperialist country that sucked it dry. context and facts are vital here and as another subscriber on here pointed out, it was withing the ‘normal’ mores/values/expectations of the day – everybody in authority and society knew what was happening in these instiutions & through their silence ALL r culpable. scapegoating just one of the many instituitions is neither fair or just. we need the overview.