Irish government to apologise over mother-and-baby homes

mellowyellow

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ireland.jpg
DARK, DIFFICULT, SHAMEFUL: Historian Catherine Corless, known for her role in exposing the background of Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland, watches from her Tuam home as Taoiseach Micheál Martin speaks live on the findings of the Commission into the homes, which he said revealed a "dark, difficult and shameful chapter of very recent Irish history". Photograph: Joe O'Shaughnessy

Established in the 19th and 20th Centuries, the institutions housed women and girls who became pregnant outside marriage.

About 9,000 children died in the 18 institutions under investigation.

The government said the report revealed the country had a "stifling, oppressive and brutally misogynistic culture"……..

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55622548
 

The Irish Government is 'deeply saddened", and is apologetic. How does it explain away 9,000 dead kids? It's amazing how governments get apologetic, when all the purportrators are safely dead. Maybe if the 'government' paid a substantial endowment to the traumatized, who are still living, to address the wrong. But "governments" are only saddened and apologetic if there's no cash involved. They just keep getting 'saddened and apologetic' as each new atrocity comes to light. Ireland is not alone in this practice.
 

This is nothing new. I remember the horrible conditions revealed in the book The Magdelene Laundries, about a similar Irish institution which housed "fallen women." The women (mostly teenaged girls) were used as slave labor.
 
The "Shame" of a unwed mother becoming pregnant resulted in the girl being 'drug' to these facilities by family members,
basically kidnapped and forced to stay in these "Homes.'
The events that occurred there could not have existed without the cooperation of the population.
 
These mother & Baby homes were run by Nuns, and the Irish government have 'apologised'' for these evil nuns... however this is just the tip of the iceberg, my mother was raised in an orphanage by Catholic nuns, and then had to go to school where all the nuns were teachers, and just about all of them , both in the children's home, and the school were sadistic witches, who beat the children regularly and punishments meted out for the smallest infractions included forcing children as young as 5 or 6 years old to scrub hard wooden floors and stairs on their hands and knees with ice cold water ,for hours on end. then kick the bucket over just as the child was nearly at the end of their task.. this could go on until past midnight in some cases then the child would be sent to bed without food ( for what it was worth).. and god help that child if they cried out in pain or hunger, for which they would be beaten, and some disappeared without trace

I wish my mother was alive today to see this all being uncovered in the last decade... it was a secret she only told the family, people didn't think anyone would believe the stories about nuns...
 
I had a run in with a nun in school one day and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. She was a miserable old maid and I told her so and that she was a disgrace to her habit and religion. My aunt was a nun, a tough teacher, but fair and really sweet. Not this babe, nor many others I'd met along the way. It got me expelled from school and I felt as though a load of bricks had been lifted from my shoulders. I was only 10 at the time, but our public school system back then was excellent and I learned to think for myself and did admirably in school work after that. Later in the Catholic hospital where I was enrolled in the Nursing program, we had a section where we took in these unfortunate girls until they gave birth. All they did was help us with post natal moms, but giving them water or coffee or tea. They were treated so well, they hated to leave after giving birth. Not all places are like that obviously.
 
So what is it with Nuns? I have some knowledge of what occurred in IReland, but I've heard a lot of horror stories from peers
attending Catholic Schools.

Every Public Schools in America had an 'old maid' teacher that was meaner than a snake.

So let's hear it from Americans that attended Catholic Schools-were the nuns ornery as hell?
 
My late husband was taught by nuns through elementary school but then the Brothers took over. From what I heard, some of the Brothers could give those old gals a run for the money.

I attended public schools, but my 4th grade teacher was a sadist, dedicated to beating any joy of learning or individualism out of any student she came across.
 
So sorry for what your mum went through,
we now know what those b**astards did.
the problem was, that due to their ''teaching'' my mother never knew how to be a mother, she'd been in that system from a baby to age 16 when she was thrown out literally into the streets to fend for herself... she didn't know how to interact with people very well, and was more naive than a new born lamb , so she was ripe for the picking when the when the older previously divorced sperm donor who became my father, came along.. and was looking for his next victim... ... talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire, ...
 
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the problem was, that due to their ''teaching'' my mother never knew how to be a mother, she'd been in that system from a baby to age 16 when she was thrown out literally into the streets to fend for herself... she didn't know how to interact with people very well, and was more naive than a new born lamb , so she was ripe for the picking when the when the older previously divorced sperm donor who became my father, came along.. and was looking for his next victim... ... talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire, ...
I wish people at large realized how abused children are marginalized. Yet they are invisible. No one sees them. A nightmare of a childhood and then they are adults. Meant to compete in the world with others who never had such experiences.

I'm so sorry with your mother because it can continue. It did with my mother also. My mother could be a good mother, then she would flip and abuse in fits of insanity. Most of hers was verbal. But a child has no idea what is happenings.
 
I wish people at large realized how abused children are marginalized. Yet they are invisible. No one sees them. A nightmare of a childhood and then they are adults. Meant to compete in the world with others who never had such experiences.

I'm so sorry with your mother because it can continue. It did with my mother also. My mother could be a good mother, then she would flip and abuse in fits of insanity. Most of hers was verbal. But a child has no idea what is happenings.
This couldn't be more true.... and I'm sure both you and I could fill pages here with information, and incidences, to prove this to be correct.
 
I'm sure It's hardly surprising for anyone to hear that my mother committed suicide age just 39 years old, after suffering a lifetime of depression caused by her upbringing then her abusive marriage... I'm also sure there were many children both female and male who suffered in the same way
 
So what is it with Nuns? I have some knowledge of what occurred in IReland, but I've heard a lot of horror stories from peers
attending Catholic Schools.

Every Public Schools in America had an 'old maid' teacher that was meaner than a snake.

So let's hear it from Americans that attended Catholic Schools-were the nuns ornery as hell?

Some were, some weren't. I will say this, they could organize and keep order in a room with 40 eight-year-olds, no small task.
 


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