Religion
Related: About this forum796 children found in Mass Grave on the grounds of a former Catholic institution called "The Home"
[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Mass grave of up to 800 dead babies exposed in County Galway[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]According to a report in the Irish Mail on Sunday, a mass grave has been located beside a former home for unmarried mothers and babies in County Galway. The grave is believed to contain the bodies of up to eight hundred babies, buried on the former grounds of the institution known locally as “The Home” in Tuam, north of Galway city, between 1925 and 1961.
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The babies were usually buried without a coffin in a plot that had once housed “a water tank,” the report claims. No memorials were erected, the site was left unmarked and unmourned.
The staggering mortality rate of “The Home” was apparently replicated elsewhere in Ireland.
The Sean Ross Mother and Baby Home, portrayed in the award winning film “Philomena” this year, opened in Roscrea, County Tipperary in 1930. In its first year of operation 60 babies died out of a total of 120, a fifty percent infant mortality rate, more than four times higher than in the general population at the time.
Statistics show a quarter of all babies born outside marriage in the 1930’s in Ireland died before their first birthdays. As observers have remarked elsewhere, these were infant death rates from the 17th century.
[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Collusion of community, religion and State spawned true horrors[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]It was like something from a Stephen King horror film. In broad daylight, outside the High Court in Lahore, Pakistan, Farzana Parveen was stoned to death by members of her own family in full view of a crowd of onlookers – including members of the police force. Her unborn baby died with her. Even worse, her widower admitted to murdering his first wife but, as he was forgiven by her family, Pakistan's 'blood laws' ensured he escaped justice – just as Farzana's killers probably will. Yes, I know, it's horrific, barbaric and obscene. But thousands of these 'honour killings' occur each year in religion- based cultures. This is what happens when communities, clerics and the state collude to control female behaviour.
We had news of our own Stephen King horror story last week in Ireland. One which also involved allegedly 'wanton women', dead babies and the collusion of community and country. What? You though we were different, did you? You thought wrong.
It was nigh on 40 years ago when Barry Sweeney and Francis Hopkins, playing in a field in Tuam, found a tank with a cracked concrete lid, threw some stones at it and were "shocked when they opened it up and found that it was full, up to the brim of "little bones, little skulls".
[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Galway historian reveals truth behind 800 orphans in mass grave[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]There is a growing international scandal around the history of The Home, a grim 1840’s workhouse in Tuam in Galway built on seven acres that was taken over in 1925 by the Bon Secours sisters, who turned it into a Mother and Baby home for “fallen women.”
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Now a local historian has stepped forward to outline the terrible circumstances around so many lost little lives.
Catherine Corless, the local historian and genealogist, remembers the Home Babies well. “They were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms,” Corless tells IrishCentral. “By doing this the nuns telegraphed the message that they were different and that we should keep away from them.
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“I do blame the Catholic Church,” says Corless. “I blame the families as well but people were afraid of the parish priest. I think they were brainwashed. I suppose the lesson is not to be hiding things. To face up to reality.
[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]‘It’s time to do something’ – The forgotten mass grave of 800 babies in Galway[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]EFFORTS ARE UNDERWAY to raise enough funds to build a memorial at an unmarked grave of as many as 800 babies in Tuam.
The site is located at what was a home for unmarried mothers, run by the Bon Secours order, from the 1920s until the 1960s.
Catherine Corless, a local historian and genealogist, was researching the home when she discovered death records for 796 children, ranging from infants to children up to the age of nine.
Honestly, I shudder to think about how many other unmarked mass graves of children who died of neglect are in the ground in Ireland. How many thousands lie dead, unremember, and even worse, purposefully forgotten, because of the circumstances of their birth? This is a perfect example of the poisoning of minds by either culture and/or religion with abhorrent ideas. It was a simple one, that babies born of single mothers were different, were less than. They were illegitimate, the bastards, and the "Fallen Women" who birthed them deserved what they got, those were lessons that were taught to them by their Church and their community. What's even worse is that this attitude still persists to this day in Ireland, The bottom article bears this out, they are struggling to raise 5,000 pounds(about 8600 USD) for a plaque for these children.
These children were born into a world, into a culture, that thought their existence was an affront to God, and many of them died knowing this.
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Heddi
(18,312 posts)Far better that they die after birth than beforehand.
mercuryblues
(14,525 posts)The Ideal Maternity Home was operated by William and Lila Young in East Chester, Nova Scotia, between the late 1920's through the 1940's. William was a chiropractor and Lila was a midwife but marketed herself as an obstetrician. The Home began as a place for local married couples to find maternity care, as well as a discreet location for unwed mothers to have their babies. At the time legal adoptions in the U.S. were not permitted across religious lines and with a shortage of available newborns, many American couples traveled to Nova Scotia to adopt from the Ideal Maternity Home. The cost of the adoptions varied but it is believed that some couples paid up to $10,000 for a baby. At times, there were upwards of 100 babies available for adoption. As time went on, the Youngs' practices became more and more corrupt. Babies who were considered 'unadoptable', either because of skin color or health issues, were left to die and buried in the woods behind the Home or dumped into the ocean. The term 'Butterbox Baby' comes from the small mitered pine butterboxes that came from the local dairy and were used as coffins, just the right size for a newborn.
That is why we call ourselves “Survivors of the Ideal Maternity Home”, we were the lucky ones
William Peach Young, an unordained Seventh-day Adventist minister and chiropractor, and his wife Lila Gladys Young, a midwife. No one knows how many babies they killed, as many were tossed into the ocean.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)as a simple Google search (or multiple searches) will clearly show.
rug
(82,333 posts)Who is Catherine Corless?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I'm glad there is a renewed push to investigate further.
rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)Local historian and genealogist who reportedly discovered the graves while doing research on the home.
Do you know more about her?
What I find curious is that by following the links, this story always returns to her and the Mail.
I find that odd for a forty year old grave.
Maybe I'm just skeptical.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)They do lead back to the mail.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)I provided.
Do you have anything useful to contribute?
rug
(82,333 posts)Your links don't answer who Catherine Corless is beyond "a local historian and genealogist". I take it you know nothing more.
Humanist_Activist
(7,670 posts)Outside of that, there's not much else but some old newspaper stories from the 1920s to the 1950s that describe the conditions at this home, which seems to lend credence that the death rate was quite high, and the children neglected.
rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)and prevents coverups like this in the future.
