The Irish Mother and Baby Homes Scandal
"None of the girls had committed any crime. But they had 2 things in common. They were all unmarried and they were all pregnant."
Sorry, this is not a cheery second newsletter.
I’ve just watched yesterday's devastating speech in the Irish Parliament given by Catherine Connolly TD in response to the newly released report into the scandal of the Irish mother and baby homes.
I was eighteen years old when I gave birth to my daughter in Ireland in a St John of Gods facility where I was one of only eight pregnant girls.
I was unmarried, but with the father of my child. We were warned they wouldn't take me if unmarried, so we lied about it. I left two days later.
Lucky me, and my daughter.
I cannot believe that at the very same time that I was giving birth in Ireland, in 1980, thousands of other girls my age and younger, many as young as 12 years old, were being forcibly confined in these establishments for years, their clothes, personal belongings, and even their names were taken from them.
And so were their babies.
Under the Irish church/state system contraception was prohibited, as was abortion. Many of the mothers were victims of rape and sexual abuse.
Rape was rarely if ever prosecuted (worldwide, the situation is not much better today).
There was no support for unmarried pregnant women or for mothers and their babies, and they were subjected to public shaming and stigmatisation.
Forced into servitude and slavery, these girls and women were subjected to emotional and physical abuse, brutalised, and exploited as unwaged slave-labour.
At Bessborough for example they were not allowed out unaccompanied, and even then only for a short walk. They could only see their children for half an hour a day. Jobs were onerous and dirty. Girls worked long shifts, including all night.
There were harsh punishments for insubordination, and if they tried to leave they were rounded up by the local police and returned to the home.
Their babies were neglected and abused by the very authorities tasked with caring for them. Thousands of babies died - 3 out of 4 in some homes, buried in unmarked and unrecorded graves - or left unburied, their bodies disposed of in septic tanks.
Many others were taken for adoption, their mothers coerced against their wills into signing consent.
Mothers were made to endure childbirth without pain relief. They were subjected to medical trials, and their babies dead bodies used for anatomical research.
The new report, like all the others that came before it, attempts to shift the blame for these atrocities onto the families involved, and onto the society and prevailing culture of the time.
But the responsibility lies squarely with the authorities - with the pronouncemnets, policies, prohibitions and practices of the Catholic church and the Irish state.
None of this is ancient history by the way. Deirdre Wadding was an 18-year-old university student in 1981 when she was forced into a home after becoming pregnant.
The last of the homes didn't close until 2006.
My heart breaks for the survivors and for the many who didn’t survive.
And I am so angry at what was done to these women and children.