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Group finds mass grave at former Catholic orphanage in Ireland

JANFU

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Group finds mass grave at former Catholic orphanage in Ireland | Fox News

The judge-led Mother and Baby Homes Commission said excavations since November at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, had found an underground structure divided into 20 chambers containing "significant quantities of human remains."

The government in 2014 formed the investigation after a local Tuam historian, Catherine Corless, tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who had died as residents of the facility — but could find a burial record for only one child.

"Everything pointed to this area being a mass grave," said Corless, who recalled how local boys playing in the field had reported seeing a pile of bones in a hidden underground chamber there in the mid-1970s.
What disgusting people participated in this? Many are no doubt dead, but some may still be alive.
 
Group finds mass grave at former Catholic orphanage in Ireland | Fox News


What disgusting people participated in this? Many are no doubt dead, but some may still be alive.
One has to remember that, well beyond the first half of the 20th century, Ireland was basically a third world nation with high infant mortality rates not only in orphanages. The level of poverty was indescribable by today's standards and the case of Tuam is just one that now surfaced.

Totally lacking the means of setting up any orphanage system of its own (let alone care homes for unwed mothers) the state was more than happy to leave it all to the Church. It's impossible to say today how bad things would have been without the Church but it's reasonable to assume that they'd have been even worse.

None of it designed to excuse anything in this, let alone justify it. Just to point out that our standards of today serve badly as parameters of judgement for conditions of both the general conditions then and the country then.
 
One has to remember that, well beyond the first half of the 20th century, Ireland was basically a third world nation with high infant mortality rates not only in orphanages. The level of poverty was indescribable by today's standards and the case of Tuam is just one that now surfaced.

Well Ireland was not a nation before 1916-21... before that it was under the British Empire, which means it started there technically. But then again, one could argue that it has been part of the Christian faith/society for centuries, where orphans were seen as animals and exploited that way.

Totally lacking the means of setting up any orphanage system of its own (let alone care homes for unwed mothers) the state was more than happy to leave it all to the Church. It's impossible to say today how bad things would have been without the Church but it's reasonable to assume that they'd have been even worse.

To be fair this was standard practice all over the world pre WW1. In fact it was not until after WW2 that things changed some what, although the "old school" system still continued. I would not be surprised one bit if similar mass graves and situations were found in the UK, Denmark, Germany and so on. Children with no parents or who came from poverty were nothing in society. They were abused, raped and killed with zero consequences. Hell in the US they were forced sterilized if they were black or native American... Hell in Denmark, there was an Island where orphaned girls were sent to, to live and be sterilized... this continued into the 1970s..

None of it designed to excuse anything in this, let alone justify it. Just to point out that our standards of today serve badly as parameters of judgement for conditions of both the general conditions then and the country then.

Correct. That is the problem some what with today. The west has very different standards now than frankly the rest of the planet and we are pushing our very high standards on everyone in some sort of moral superiority. The fact of the matter, we cant go around throwing our moral superiority against Muslims, Buddhists or random nationality/society/culture, if we are not willing to admit and tackle our own very dark dark past. Both the admitting and tackling does not happen nearly enough if at all.
 
Well Ireland was not a nation before 1916-21... before that it was under the British Empire, which means it started there technically. But then again, one could argue that it has been part of the Christian faith/society for centuries, where orphans were seen as animals and exploited that way.



To be fair this was standard practice all over the world pre WW1. In fact it was not until after WW2 that things changed some what, although the "old school" system still continued. I would not be surprised one bit if similar mass graves and situations were found in the UK, Denmark, Germany and so on. Children with no parents or who came from poverty were nothing in society. They were abused, raped and killed with zero consequences. Hell in the US they were forced sterilized if they were black or native American... Hell in Denmark, there was an Island where orphaned girls were sent to, to live and be sterilized... this continued into the 1970s..



Correct. That is the problem some what with today. The west has very different standards now than frankly the rest of the planet and we are pushing our very high standards on everyone in some sort of moral superiority. The fact of the matter, we cant go around throwing our moral superiority against Muslims, Buddhists or random nationality/society/culture, if we are not willing to admit and tackle our own very dark dark past. Both the admitting and tackling does not happen nearly enough if at all.

Moral superiority/laws-rights- that would depend upon the issue(s) at hand.
 
Well Ireland was not a nation before 1916-21... before that it was under the British Empire, which means it started there technically. But then again, one could argue that it has been part of the Christian faith/society for centuries, where orphans were seen as animals and exploited that way.



To be fair this was standard practice all over the world pre WW1. ..........................~
Yes, very salient point requiring to be added. In fact (as you rightly point out) dire conditions continued into the 60s and 70s even in many places in Europe.

Perhaps not to the point of mass burial of infant orphans but then that practice appears to have somewhat ceased in Ireland by the 50s as well.

One need however see the special conditions of Ireland in the time span in question. Not only was it the poor house of Europe, the influence of the Catholic church in matters of state was unique. That doesn't mean I want to lay responsibility exclusively at religion's doorstep in general or the Catholic church in particular (my previous post hopefully makes that clear), yet the utter lack of secularity did keep the country pretty much backwards even after WWII.

One need only look at the abortion laws that prevail to this day, possibly matched only by and in Poland.
 
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