‘We did not live up to our Christianity’ - order of nuns who ran infamous Tuam Home apologises

[Anglophile]

A superb speech by An Taoiseach....

 

[Anglophile]

The Unionists up north were 100% correct - Home Rule was Rome Rule....

 

[gerhard dengler]

The Unionists up north were 100% correct - Home Rule was Rome Rule....

This would be "a Protestant State for a Protestant people" up north unionists?

 

[Anglophile]

This would be "a Protestant State for a Protestant people" up north unionists?

Yes.

They were still right.

Now try and focus on our own state since 1922.....

 

[gerhard dengler]

Yes.

They were still right.

Now try and focus on our own state since 1922.....

They weren't right. They were a crowd of sectarian cants

 

[Anglophile]

They weren't right. They were a crowd of sectarian cants

You don't accept the overwhelming power of the Catholic Church in this state
right up to the Eighties??

Delusional.

 

[gerhard dengler]

You don't accept the overwhelming power of the Catholic Church in this state
right up to the Eighties??

Delusional.

I try to look at things objectively. The Church provided a lot of support and help to millions when the state couldn't/wouldn't.

I don't see the past as some sort of Utopia for Ireland. It wasn't. But if I was to rely solely on the "recollections" of a certain demographic, the country they lived in is not the country I lived in.

 

[Immaculate Mind]

The Unionists up north were 100% correct - Home Rule was Rome Rule....

Well the choice was The British Empire or unity and self determination,remember the unionists,Protestant Loyalists were and still are the minority of Ireland.

The the RC church had a psychological stranglehold on the majority of Irish people,but that's all changed.The RC church's insistence and belief in celibacy for priests,monks and nuns led to sexual frustration and so many problems.

Sexual education was pretty much non existent during most of the twentieth century in Ireland as well.Fanaticism both religious and political will always create misery.It's good that Ireland faces up to it's faults and does it's best to make up for the past as much as is possible.

 

[Vengeful Glutton]

Well the choice was The British Empire or unity and self determination,remember the unionists,Protestant Loyalists were and still are the minority of Ireland.

The the RC church had a psychological stranglehold on the majority of Irish people,but that's all changed.The RC church's insistence and belief in celibacy for priests,monks and nuns led to sexual frustration and so many problems.

Sexual education was pretty much non existent during most of the twentieth century in Ireland as well.Fanaticism both religious and political will always create misery.It's good that Ireland faces up to it's faults and does it's best to make up for the past as much as is possible.

I've always treated that statement with a degree of skepticism. It's an excuse for letting the ordinary schmoes off the hook. "They didn't know any better because the Catholic Church brain washed them." Incidentally, communist and socialist politburos are invariably accused of having a stranglehold over their people - I've never bought that one either.

 

[Vengeful Glutton]

You don't accept the overwhelming power of the Catholic Church in this state
right up to the Eighties??

Delusional.

Senior management in powerful institutions such as Bank of Ireland, Guinnesses and The Irish Times were for a very long time, prod.

Trinity College didn't allow left footers to matriculate for its curricula until the late 60s (despite receiving subsidies from the Irish taxpayer - mostly catholic).

The RCC weren't very successful in lobbying the state to install Catholic bishops on the board of BOI, Trinners and the Irish Slimes.

 

[Catalpa]

They just split me open to deliver the baby,” she said. In Castlepollard, a woman recalled how a doctor had “stitched me in cold blood with not even a local anaesthetic.”


Another recalled having a symphysiotomy performed on her without her knowledge.


Many women reported being forced to carry out cruel or degrading labour. A woman who was sent to Castlepollard in the early 1960s remembered being forced by nuns to unblock toilets with her bare hands. The same woman saw “about 10” dead babies being sent to be buried in shoe boxes.


A woman who was sent to Bessborough in the 1960s when she was 18 said women were made to work every day, regardless of illness.

But who are these people?

Anonymous accusations are useless from an historical perspective.

 

[Catalpa]

Ok, but what would you have done, if you had been in government during the years 1940 - 1945 (when infant mortality in the homes were highest)?

I've asked this question before and no one answers it.

Infant mortality were the highest for years as we were to all intents & purposes cut off from most of the World

There was a State of National Emergency from 1939 onwards

Most people were living by the skin of their teeth...