796 children who died at Tuam Mother and Baby Home

[Carol Bird]

Article from Irish Journal

These were the 796 children who died at Tuam Mother and Baby Home

http://www.thejournal.ie/list-names-tuam-babies-children-3270019-Mar2017/

[Olde Crone Holden]

Words fail me, other than to ask - did these nuns think god would be pleased with them?

OC

[Katarzyna]

How terribly, terrible sad. It beggar's belief.

[Tilly Mint]

Words fail me, other than to ask - did these nuns think god would be pleased with them?

OC

How very, very sad.....

If the said nuns were that pious......they should be in hell now going by their actions.....

"In the Catholic Church, sins come in two basic types: mortal sins that imperil your soul and venial sins, which are less serious breaches of God's law. The Church believes that if you commit a mortal sin, you forfeit heaven and opt for hell by your own free will and actions......."

[Mary from Italy]

I think the real scandal there is the very high death rate at the home and the causes of death (including a few cases of malnutrition). It was normal for babies to be buried in mass graves at the time, in England too.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Mary

I am not aware that it was the norm for babies and children to be buried in mass graves in England at that time or indeed any other time.

At least some of the remains found at Tuam had been dumped in a disused sewage tank, showing at even the most generous interpretation a complete lack of respect for human remains. This Home is already known for its cruel and vicious regime and sadly this just one more indication of the same.

OC

[Mary from Italy]

Maybe "mass graves" is the wrong term; I meant "common graves".

I have numerous relatives at a large council cemetery in England; I have the burial CD, dating from the mid-19th century, and a lot of unrelated babies were buried together in common graves there (maybe 20 or so to a grave, not hundreds). I don't think funerals were usually held for them.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Mary

If they were buried in consecrated ground then there would at least have been some kind of graveside prayer. The fact that their burials were recorded puts them one notch at least above the Tuam children.

I take your point that the high mortality rate needs explanation. I have read elsewhere that the cause of death on the DC isn't necessarily true and there was a suggestion that doctors signed off death certs without ever having seen the child.

I know this kind of abuse and criminal neglect wasn't confined to RC nuns in Ireland, it went on in all institutions which purported to care, but that doesn't stop me being outraged at every revelation. And cruelty inflicted in the service of god seems particularly heinous and inexplicable to me.

OC

[Guest]

very very sad, funny thing religion

[Janet]

Burials in Ireland were quite common in all sorts of places. Some of my OH's family members born and died within a few days are buried on the ancestral farm somewhere. It is strange, but marriage and births of children were recorded in church, once the churches were there, and that is after 1840 for most Irish, but deaths are not well recorded , possibly because a poor nation will bury its dead where they die rather than spend money on a church burial. I wonder what happens in the poorer parts of India. Pre 1864 I have no idea either when my ancestors died or where they lie.

Tilly Mint

"In the Catholic Church, sins come in two basic types: mortal sins that imperil your soul and venial sins, which are less serious breaches of God's law. The Church believes that if you commit a mortal sin, you forfeit heaven and opt for hell by your own free will and actions......."

As a practising Catholic I do not really recognise this statement today! However, I would have recognised it pre Vatican 2!! Priests do not talk about Mortal and Venial sins these days, so much more is left to your own conscience to decide.

This is not to excuse what happened in Tuam, but just to point out the Irish History.

I have had my own run around with being sent backwards and forwards to Dublin and Cork re some close relatives who were in an orphanage in Cork. I have given up the fight as I was told that the records had been destroyed, though told a yera previously they were available but woud need a Freedom of Iformation letter. I think I have worked out where they were from Family History instinct!!

Janet

[Olde Crone Holden]

Janet

Not to labour the point, but these were 20th century burials, unrecorded and in ground not licenced for burials.

I see that there is also an investigation of the suggestion that many of the death certificates were falsified in order to cover up the illegal adoption trade which went on from this Home to wealthy Catholics in the USA. I am not sure which is worse really - 800 children dying whilst in the care of those who were PAID to care, or the illegal forced adoption of some or all of those 800, which could only have happened with the connivance of various other official bodies.

OC

[jenoco]

Very, very sad.