Protestant Bethany Homes babies ignored - Irish Examiner

Protestant Bethany Homes babies ignored 
Irish Examiner

"The Dublin Foundling Hospital which was established by Royal Charter had a death rate of over 90% in the 19th century, as Joseph Robins records in his brilliant study of Irish children living on charity, The Lost Children: a Study of Charity Children in Ireland, 1700-1900 (Institute of Public Administration). If this book were reissued now we might begin to get some perspective and some historical context to the Tuam babies episode.

At the Dublin Foundling Hospital, the gate porter had the duty of disposing of the bodies of the dead infants, as Joseph Robins writes:

“For the sake of convenience burials were confined to three days a week. Between burial days, the dead infants accumulated and the porter stated that he had buried as many as thirteen at one time. Wrapped in grey blankets, the bodies were taken to a field at the back of the hospital and interred there. So frequent were the burials that the field was completely bare of grass.”

By Victoria White (Irish Examiner)

Tuam and the British Press

The Daily Mail
(UK Paper)

"An expert survey of what is thought to be the burial site of 796 babies in Tuam has uncovered two areas of interest where anomalies in the soil indicate likely human activity beneath the surface. The survey recommends further investigation and experts say if we are to find out anything more a dig would be necessary. The Irish Mail on Sunday can also reveal that the Sisters of Bon Secours, who are at the centre of the scandal, had the remains of 12 members of the order exhumed and re-buried in a cemetery in Knock before they abandoned their base in Galway in 2001 – after selling property to the Western Health Board for a reported €4m."

Tuam and Amnesty International

Amnesty International
(Read More)

"Disturbing revelations about an unmarked “mass grave” of up to 800 babies and children found in Tuam, a town in the west of Ireland, must prompt urgent answers from the Irish Government about the wider issue of past child abuse in religious-run institutions, said Amnesty International today".

Catherine Corless and Tuam

May 27 2014
 10:56 PM
The Journal i.e

"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".

The worth of illegitmate children

Blog report on Tuam
(read more)

“Cherish all the children equally” is a defining Irish shibboleth, enshrined in Ireland’s Proclamation of Independence. It is one of our highest aspirations and, like most of the things we Irish hold dearest, it is build on a solid foundation of utter hypocrisy. Cherish all the children? By all available evidence, we Irish don’t even like children. I’ve written about this before and I’m sure I will again. Ireland really is no country for small children. The Irish Mail on Sunday reports that up to eight hundred children may be buried in an unmarked mass grave in Tuam, Co Galway, on the former grounds of an institution known locally as “The Home”. (Local knowledge says that there is no “may” about this.) Run by the Bon Secours nuns, “The Home”, which had previously been a workhouse, operated between 1926 and 1961 and over the years housed thousands of unmarried mothers and their “illegitimate” children.