Post by cato on Jan 13, 2021 20:20:50 GMT
Somewhere on this site there is a discussion on Tuam and mother and baby homes but I can't locate it. A few observations on the report released yesterday.
The very long report seems to be quite balanced and doesn't pander to the myth of hapless Irish people ordered about by clergy and nuns. The report puts much of the responsibility at the feet of actual families and a rigid class and status obsessed society.
Many of those who normally have social explanations for everything have been enraged at any attempt to explain why post famine Irish society was so hard and harsh to those who diverted from the norm. John Waters has written in the past about the malign pychological and human waste brought about by the great famine. I am not sure if this is addressed in the report but the traumas of that terrible event lingered for generations.
Frank Duff ran the Regina Coeli hostel in Dublin which had a relatively benign ethos where women could come and go and were no one was forcibly separated from their children. Duff was a great compassionate kind man who offered a real Christian alternative to the more usual harsh treatment met out by religious orders who were called to a higher standard of Christian charity.
Many of the 9000 deaths were concentrated in the period before the 1950s when vaacines, antibiotics and better hygiene led to a massive decline in childhood diseases. This is often ignored but the children in "care" were much more likely to die than the ordinary children of the poor.
Modern Ireland is a very wealthy place and many have forgotten how prevalent poverty was for the bulk of our population for so long. A child outside marriage was an extra unwanted mouth to feed. Few men would marry an unmarried mother for fear or shame. The code were unmarried women were shamed and vilified but were the men got away Scot free is truly shocking and scandalous.
The Church that helped enforce strict almost impossible standards in the early 20th century also helped undermine the taboos around unmarried mothers in the 1960s and 1970s. Religious women who are now vilified as a group were active in helping women keep their children as social attitudes changed. Some prefer to forget such nuances . It can be comforting to imagine all the harsh cruelty came from outside ourselves and that ordinary people our ancestors had nothing to do with all this hard heartedness.
The very long report seems to be quite balanced and doesn't pander to the myth of hapless Irish people ordered about by clergy and nuns. The report puts much of the responsibility at the feet of actual families and a rigid class and status obsessed society.
Many of those who normally have social explanations for everything have been enraged at any attempt to explain why post famine Irish society was so hard and harsh to those who diverted from the norm. John Waters has written in the past about the malign pychological and human waste brought about by the great famine. I am not sure if this is addressed in the report but the traumas of that terrible event lingered for generations.
Frank Duff ran the Regina Coeli hostel in Dublin which had a relatively benign ethos where women could come and go and were no one was forcibly separated from their children. Duff was a great compassionate kind man who offered a real Christian alternative to the more usual harsh treatment met out by religious orders who were called to a higher standard of Christian charity.
Many of the 9000 deaths were concentrated in the period before the 1950s when vaacines, antibiotics and better hygiene led to a massive decline in childhood diseases. This is often ignored but the children in "care" were much more likely to die than the ordinary children of the poor.
Modern Ireland is a very wealthy place and many have forgotten how prevalent poverty was for the bulk of our population for so long. A child outside marriage was an extra unwanted mouth to feed. Few men would marry an unmarried mother for fear or shame. The code were unmarried women were shamed and vilified but were the men got away Scot free is truly shocking and scandalous.
The Church that helped enforce strict almost impossible standards in the early 20th century also helped undermine the taboos around unmarried mothers in the 1960s and 1970s. Religious women who are now vilified as a group were active in helping women keep their children as social attitudes changed. Some prefer to forget such nuances . It can be comforting to imagine all the harsh cruelty came from outside ourselves and that ordinary people our ancestors had nothing to do with all this hard heartedness.