Roman Catholic babies’ mass grave scandal in Ireland

This video says about itself:

“They were babies” – remains found in Irish church home’s sewers confirmed as human

4 March 2017

A significant amount of remains found in the sewers of a former church-run home for unmarried mothers in Ireland have been confirmed as human.

The remains, found in a disused sewer in the town of Tuam in western Ireland, are said to range from newborns to three-year-old toddlers.

The revelation follows decades of rumours and suspicion that hundreds of infants were buried in a mass grave at the site.

A government-ordered commission began test excavations in October 2014.

Read more here.

By Pauline Murphy:

A scandal that lay secret for too long

Saturday 25th March 2017

Why did no-one listen to the early warning voices about the cover-up of mass child graves at Bon Secours in Co Galway, asks PAULINE MURPHY

FOR decades, there had been mumblings about a mass grave bursting with the bones of children on the site of a religious-run mother and baby home in the west of Ireland.

In recent weeks those age-old mumblings were translated into fact.

Over the course of several decades, hundreds of deceased children had been discarded by the Bons Secours religious order in Tuam, Co Galway, and but for the incessant and fearless work of local historian Catherine Corless who uncovered the truth, it would have remained buried.

This 10 March 2017 video from Ireland is called A well deserved standing ovation for Tuam Babies Historian Catherine Corless.

These children, who died from a variety of causes, were the offspring of “fallen women” — a term which is alien to most people in today’s society.

In the Ireland of the past, a woman who had a child “out of of wedlock” was considered a wicked being, someone who brought shame on their family and parish.

The Catholic church, which wielded an iron fist over Irish society, would suggest the best place for these women was a mother and baby home where they could give birth to their “bastard” child.

Once the child was born it was tagged for adoption and more often than not it was given up for adoption to the highest bidder, usually in the US.

While many survived, many more did not, as is the case with the horror story which unfolded in Tuam.

An inquiry will now be set up to dig deeper into the rotten core of these religious-run homes which were scattered across the country.

Now that the church has lost its powerful position in Irish society, we are free to question the dark deeds carried out by religious orders in places such as the Tuam mother and baby home.

We may think that people cowered under the cruel society the church lorded over, but there are a few who did challenge the church and its harsh regime against ordinary Irish people.

The Irish Workers Voice was the newspaper of the Communist Party of Ireland in the 1930s and in its May 4 issue of 1935 it carried a report with the headline: “We demand an open inquiry into the scandal of Artane tragedy.”

It detailed the killing of a teenager by a so-called holy man in the Dublin industrial school of Artane.

The church-run mother and baby homes were set up to cage Irish women who stepped out of line while the purpose of the religious-run industrial schools was to keep “wayward” youngsters and “unwanted” orphans out of Irish society.

The report was based on an interview the father of the dead youngster gave to the left-wing publication.

Fifty-five-year-old Dubliner Patrick Byrne described how he saw the body of his 15-year-old son laid out in the hospital mortuary: “I saw my boy on Holy Thursday when he was lying dead at the Mater hospital. I lifted the shroud and his ribs and whole side were black and blue and his jaw was discloured.”

John Byrne had been playing football in the yard of the Artane industrial school when the ball accidentally hit the master, Brother Cornelius Lynch, who then turned on young Byrne and gave him an merciless beating.

The boy lingered for days after his beating at the hands of the schoolmaster before succumbing to death.

A hasty inquest was carried out by the school medical officer Dr Murphy who concluded that the cause of the youth’s death could not be determined.

Other boys in the schoolyard had witnessed the master beat the life out of their friend and John’s father was convinced his son had indeed died due to the harsh treatment he received at Artane, but nothing was ever done about it.

In the same report in the Irish Workers Voice newspaper, the father of the dead boy stated that his son’s body son was taken away by the church authorities and buried.

The grieving father never saw his son in his coffin and remarked to the newspaper: “There is something terrible and strange about it all, I’m not even sure if I buried my own son.”

The same report states that the death of John Byrne was not the first in the religious-run school that occurred under suspicious circumstances.

The report ended with the call for an inquiry: “No whitewashing but a free and full inquiry to reveal the facts.”

Those who challenged the church in such ways like this report in a left-wing publication were considered enemies of the state, they were seen as a threat to the power held by the church in a society crippled by conservative hands.

Now we look back and consider that these “subversives” were not the enemy, they were the brave few who did speak out against the authoritarian role of the church in Ireland.

In today’s Irish society we should take inspiration from them because the Catholic church chained the soul of this country, now it’s up to this generation to break the last few links of those rusty chains.