Mass grave at Galway home not the only one, says Irish leader Kenny
Sheila Langan June 06,2014
The mass grave of 796 children at a former home for unwed mothers and children in Tuam, Co. Galway is likely not the only one of its kind in Ireland, Prime Minister Enda Kenny has said.
A government investigation launched in wake of the shocking discovery will focus on all of the former so-called ‘mother and baby homes’ in Ireland, it was announced yesterday.
Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan is organizing a group of senior officials who will advise the government on the scope of investigation required and the best course of action at the end of the month.
Speaking from the US, where he is currently on a trade mission, Kenny said that Flanagan and his committee would determine “whether this is an isolated [incident] or whether there are others around the country that need to be looked at” and to “decide what is the best thing to do in the interests of dealing with another element of our country's past.”....
Many other homes for unwed mothers, their “illegitimate” children and other orphans operated in Ireland throughout the 1900s. There was Bessborough in Co. Cork, Sean Ross in Tipperary (where Philomena Lee had her son), and Castlepollard in Westmeath – all run by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart. The mortality rates at these homes were far higher than the national average, the Irish Examiner recently reported, ranging from 30% - 50% between 1930 and 1945.
There were Protestant mother and baby homes too, such as the Bethany Home in Dublin, where a similar scandal took place. Between 1922 and 1949, close to 220 children died and were buried in an unmarked grave at Dublin’s Mount Jerome Cemetery. They were memorialized in 2010.....
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Mass-grave-at-Tuam-Childrens-Home-not-the-only-one-says-Kenny.html
Ireland shock over 800 babies 'in septic tank'
Friday 06 June 2014
Ireland has been rocked this week as another horrific scandal linked to the Catholic church emerges in Galway, where a mass grave with the bodies of 800 children was uncovered.
....This week it was revealed that the site contained the remains of hundreds of children who died in the care of Bon Secours nuns between 1925 and 1961 and was not a famine grave as originally claims in the 70s.
The babies are believed to have been secretly buried at the home for unwed mothers, dubbed "fallen women", which had an extraordinarily high infant mortality rates - with children dying of TB, pneumonia, measles and gastorenteritis.
A report from the institution in 1944 revealed emaciated childen, mothers suffering with mental health issues and overcrowding.
The Bon Secours sisters, a Roman Catholic organisation, began providing healthcare in Ireland in the 19th century and is now the country's largest private healthcare provider.
The sisters said they were shocked and saddened by the reports, they ran 10 similar homes across Ireland and three of the others are believed to have plots with the remains of 3,200 babies and infants....
The case follows a series of scandals over abuse at institutions entrusted to the Catholic church in Ireland.
The Artane Industrial school case revealed how Christian brothers systematically neglected and abused orphans and boys from single parent families put into "state care" for decades.
Magdalen asylums, known as Magdalene laundries, ran in Ireland until 1996 with as many as 30,000 "fallen women" incarcerated, stripped of their identities and forced to carry out forced labour.
Women were locked up in abusive laundries for being sexually active outside marriage, having "illegitimate children" and some simply to safeguard their "moral purity"....
It found the entire system had treated children as prisoners and slaves, ignoring their rights and noted that some religious officials had encouraged ritual beatings - while protecting their own with a culture of secrecy.
http://www.channel4.com/news/bon-secour-galway-catholic-church-ireland-septic-tank
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