between the rock and the cold, cold sea

Exhume the Tuam bodies...

2014-06-07T11:32:07Z

...interview the surviving nuns and inmates of the Tuam "Mother and Baby Home," and let's have the truth of where the dead children are buried - and why they were denied the dignity of proper remembrance.

Catherine Corless uncovered the fact that 796 children died over a period of 30 years while their care was the responsibility of the Tuam "Mother and Baby Home" run by the Bons Secours order of nursing nuns. There are no burial records for any of these children, nor did Corless find any indication that they'd been interred in local cemeteries.

That their bodies were interred in a septic tank is speculation.

This takes nothing away from the horror of the mortality statistics and the picture they paint of the neglect and indeed the evil committed by the Catholic Church while it masqueraded in the guise of moral righteousness. The Tuam "Mother and Baby Home" is only one of dozens, if not hundreds, that operated in Ireland during the 20th century. Corless' research is a drop in the bucket.

An immense bucket, filled the the bodies of the dead.

Further reading:

Tuam: What Lies Beneath
No country for young women: honour crimes and infanticide in Ireland
Midwife's memoir reveals the horror of Mother and Baby Home in Bessborough, Cork
Amnesty International calls for urgent investigation

ETA: Many of these links via nwbrux

comments

we'll dig his grave with a silver spade/ walk him along, John, carry him along

2011-10-24T17:28:00Z

Greece: austerity cannot prevent depression.

Krugman: "ECB suggests that it’s quite likely that the confidence fairy will make everything OK."

Indications suggest holders of Greek bonds will take a 60% cut. Downside: indications suggest that the Right-Thinking People consider Greece a special case - which demonstrates rigid and limited thinking.

Oh, and everyone wants to smack Berlusconi.

Meanwhile, in the UK, a Guardian poll suggests that almost half of British voters would support a withdrawal from the EU, rising fees bring about a 12% drop in university applications, and St. Paul's cathedral claims Occupy! protestors are costing it £20,000/day in lost revenue.

Back home, our presidential frontrunners include a smugly forgettable septegenarian leprechaun, an even smugger Old Boys' Clubber with a shiny bullet for a head, and the smuggest of the lot, a self-aggrandising former terrorist with the face of an alcoholic tomato.

Yah, I no can has respect for really bad election posters.

The candidates. (Unfair to Norris, and over-generous to Davis, but otherwise a decent assessment.)

And "That's a lot of piss": new ways to cut costs.

Oh, and the Irish Times has launched a new section of its website called, "Generation Emigration."

Fun times, my friends. Fun times.

comments