Travelling back after a funeral yesterday, I stopped in Tuam to visit the burial ground of the babies from the Mother & Baby Home. It was a warm early evening. The adjacent playground had a number of different groups of children. There was well in excess of twenty children, all having fun. In July of 2014, one was unable to establish the marital or relationship status of a child’s parents – society has changed. Of all that I read of the Mother & Baby Home, two articles have stood out for me by Fergus Finlay and Felicity Hayes-McCoy. Families brought their daughters to the home. Their neighbours and society expected it. The Bon Secours Order do deserve some of the blame – not all. But let’s not try to find too easy a scapegoat. For sure, religious orders and individuals did what they did in the name of some repressed, authoritarian and twisted version of their own ethos. But they also did it because Irish society wanted actively to stigmatise young vulnerable women, and to hide them from decent folk. We gave licence for everything that was done. Our state colluded. Public policy suggested that it was OK to treat people as criminals although they had committed no crime. | “…there were, of course, people who knew. The families of the women and girls who were consigned to virtual prisons to hide the perceived shame of their pregnancies and illegitimate children. The individual nuns, priests and brothers who abused those in their care. The politicians and civil servants who allowed and supported the system.The members of the police force who assisted in tracking down escapees from institutions where effectively they were used as slave labour. The medical professionals who attended the inmates. Those who allegedly failed to register deaths lawfully. And whoever it was that carried those dead bodies to their graves in Tuam, and to all the other graves up and down the country where adults, children and infants were buried without decency or respect.” As one enters the area of the playground, the most striking sight is a commemorative monument to members of Óglaigh na hÉireann who died at the hands of the forces of the state of the time. It was interesting to note that the plaque also honours Mother Hortence McNamara of the Bon Secours. The same Bon Secours who are now being condemned by the political wing of Óglaigh na hÉireann – just one part of society that has changed its position. |
1 Comment
Jack McC
19/7/2014 05:51:14
Spot on! Well said Tony.
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