Seminar on Tuam Children's Home (Online) - Transferred to Galway

This is a follow up to my article "Archbishop Diarmuid Martin and Cancellation of Seminar on Tuam Children’s Home" The Seminar originally scheduled for Dublin University Church on 30th August was cancelled by Archbishop Martin and eventually held in Galway on 4 October. I had intended to do an article on the subject but www.CatholicArena.com have done so much better than I could. This is a link to their article IRELAND'S MOTHER AND BABY HOMES: THE REAL STORY (After several postponements, Judge Yvonne Murphy is due to present the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes to Government on 30 October 2020).

At the conference in Galway, three historians (including my amateur self), Brian Nugent, Eugene Jordan and Rory Connor discussed the various inconsistencies in the prevailing public narratives of this period of Irish history. 

Brian Nugent: Did Home Rule equals Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?

SUMMARY: Brian Nugent (author of  @Tuam Babies: A Critical look at the Tuam Children's Home Scandal) spoke on the topic “Did Home Rule equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland?” He endeavoured to show that the frequently repeated claim of a kind of Catholic dictatorship in Ireland can be shown to be false. Firstly by examining the attitude of the Taoisigh [Prime Ministers] of Ireland in those years, then from the pattern seen in a number of other important institutions, such as the Judiciary, Presidency, and Lord Mayoralties of Dublin, and sectors like healthcare and especially education, and finally by raising the surprising subject of anti-Catholic discrimination in the South of Ireland in those years

W.T. Cosgrove was effectively the first Taoiseach (Prime Minster) of independent Ireland - from 1922 to 1932. He was indeed very religious and a close friend of Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary. However in a letter to Archbishop Gilmartin of Tuam on 11 March 1931 he wrote (in relation to a dispute about the appointment of a Protestant librarian in Co Mayo):

"As I explained to Your Grace at our interview, to discriminate against any citizen - or to exercise a preference for a citizen - on account of religious belief, would be to conflict with some of the fundamental principles on which this State is founded."

A look at the career of Eamon de Valera (first became Taoiseach in 1932)  throws up three issues which are infrequently brought up: i) his excommunication, along with all the anti-Treaty side, during the Civil War. He and his colleagues didn’t modify their behaviour to accommodate the Bishops admonitions then, so surely that proves  their independence in political matters from the latter? ii) The angry reaction from many important Catholics to the lack of recognition of that religion in his constitution, including to a degree from the Pope and certainly from influential clerics like Fr Edward Cahill S.J. and Fr Denis Fahey C.S.Sp, who campaigned vigorously against his constitution on those grounds for many years. iii) The surprising fact, thrown up by modern research in archives in Dublin and Rome, that de Valera himself seemed to be most responsible for the appointment of Michael Browne to the Bishopric of Galway, and Dr McQuaid to Dublin. The State also influenced the Church as well as the other way around!

Sean Lemass (Taoiseach 1959-66 and de Valera's Deputy since 1932)

Extract from his taped Memoirs:

 "I think there was a political advantage in having a certain anti-clerical tinge.......The only time in my life that I ever got an enormous vote, the highest vote ever accorded to any candidate in a general election was when I was having a full-scale row with the bishop of Galway [Dr Michael Browne in 1944] and this was dominating the political scene and I found this on other occasions too – that having a good row with the bishop is quite a political asset and you do not suffer politically for it because there is an anti-clericalism in the Irish people."

First Four Presidents of Ireland

1. Douglas Hyde (1938 - 45)                     Protestant

2. Sean T. O'Kelly (1945 - 59)                   Catholic

3. Eamon de Valera (1959 - 73)                Catholic

4. Erskine Childers (1973 - 74)                  Protestant 

Lord Mayors of Dublin

Robert Briscoe (1956-57 and 1961-62)    Jewish

Maurice Dockrell (1960-61)                       Protestant

Judiciary

From the biography of Timothy Sullivan, first President of the Irish High Court (1924-36):

"Throughout his tenure Sullivan presided over a high court whose membership of six was equally divided between judges of a nationalist and unionist background."

Examples of non-Catholic judges of the time include:

 T. C. Kingsmill Moore, son of  a Protestant Minister, a Senator 1943-47, he was a High Court judge 1947-51 and on the Supreme Court 1951-66.

James Creed Meredith, President of Dail Supreme Court 1920-22, judge of the High Court 1924-37, on the Supreme Court and for a time President of it, 1937-42.

Gerald Fitzgibbon T.D. 1921-23, judge on the Supreme Court 1924-38.

Healthcare: Some Dublin Hospitals in 1959 (amalgamation was being considered)

The hospitals concerned are Sir Patrick Dun's; Mercers; the National Children's Hospital, Harcourt St; the Meath; Baggot St; Steevens and the Adelaide. With the exception of the Meath, they could all be referred to as Protestant Hospitals, controlled by Protestants and largely staffed by Protestant doctors.

Rotunda Hospital

The Rotunda Hospital, Dublin was founded in 1745 as a Maternity Training Hospital, the first of its kind. It got its first Catholic Master in 1995!

Education (1964 quote from Irish Senator)

"We in Ireland are justly proud of our school system, he continued. Scrupulous care is taken that Catholicism, Protestantism or Atheism are not imposed on any pupil against his will. Any denominational group can, at any time, set up its own school and the corresponding State support is immediately made available on the basis of the number of pupils in attendance"

At Independence in 1921, the new Irish State took over the education system set up by the British in the 19th century without making any major changes. There had been furious controversy between the Bishops and the British Government in regard to the setting up of the National Schools (primary) system and the Queens Colleges (university) system. This was largely settled in the 1870s when the British agreed that all religious denominations in Ireland could build and run their own schools, while the State would pay the salaries of the teachers. The curricula for the Primary Certificate, Intermediate Certificate and University entrance examinations were set by the State but apart from that, the school managers could create their own study programmes for Religion, History  etc. The Catholic Church and all major Protestant Churches established their own schools on that basis. A Jewish Primary School was set up in south Dublin in the 1930s and later a a Jewish Secondary School.

In more modern times Educate Together (or atheist) schools were set up on the same basis from about 1979 and a Muslim school in 1990.

Trinity College

 Ireland's first university established by the British Government in 1592 appointed its first Catholic Provost in 1991. Its reputation as a Protestant/Unionist stronghold was such that until 1970, Catholic students were not  permitted to attend without permission from the Archbishop of Dublin. After 1921 it continued to be subsidised by the State on the same basis as the other universities. Under the terms of the 1937 Constitution, graduates of Trinity College elect three Senators to Seanad Eireann.  

Guinness 

"It (Guinness) had no qualms about selling drink to Catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s ...the blatant discrimination continued far longer than it should have" (Irish Independent, 17 June 2013)

Bank of Ireland

Founded in 1783, the Bank of Ireland got its first Catholic Chief Executive Officer in 1991.

Irish Times

Founded in 1859, the Irish Times appointed its first Catholic editor in 1986

Brian Nugent stated that it is nonsense to talk about some kind of Catholic dictatorship and Home Rule did NOT equal Rome Rule in Independent Ireland!

Eugene Jordan:'Tuam Children's Home Story & Failure of Modern Irish Historiography'

SUMMARY: Eugene Jordan, recently the President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society, spoke on the question: “The Tuam Children’s Home story, a failure of modern Irish Historiography”. He described a lamentable pattern of how modern Irish historiography – the history of history –  unfairly runs down the Catholic Church, and frequently the good work of Irish people in general in the recent past. He spoke about the inferiority complex that seems very prevalent among Irish people in modern times, and to a degree among modern historians, and  questioned the sometimes intimidatory atmosphere created by feminism over some of these issues.

Regarding the limitations of Historiography in general (and the claim that the Catholic Church is hostile to Science) Eugene presented us with names of famous scientists few members of the public are aware of:

• Lazzaro Spallanzani: First person to perform In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in 1786 meaning in the glass as opposed to in utero, in the womb. Pioneer into the study of echo location in bats.        
• Eugenio Barsanti: Inventor of the first practical internal combustion engine. 
• Giovanni Castelli: Inventor of the Fax machine       
• Jean Antoine Nollet: Discovered the osmosis of membranes        
• Giovanni Battista Venturi: The Venturi Effect is named after him   
• René Just Haüy: Father of Crystallography
• Georges Lemaître:  One of the most famous scientists in the world you have never heard of. First person to come up with the Big Bang Theory
  

All were Catholic priests! .......... So indeed was the anatomist Gabriele Falloppio, for whom the Fallopian Tubes and other anatomical structures are named. So feminists who talk about the female sexual organs are invoking the name of a priest!

Deaths at the Tuam Children's Home have been compared to a "Holocaust" and explicit references have been made to the Nazis. So let's compare the statistics for the 36 year period from 1925 to 1960 inclusive) when the Home was open to a recent 36-year period from 1982 to 2017. 

The number of births between the two 36 year periods is remarkably similar with a figure of close to 2.2 million. Points to note. A mere 12,632 infants (less than one year old) died in the 1982 to 2017 period representing a massive drop from the 145,818 infant deaths in the earlier period. This means that 4,166 babies died on average in Ireland each year in which the Tuam Home was open. That figure has dropped in recent decades to an average of 361 infant deaths per year - or less than one tenth the number. This is in line with the drop in infant mortality that has taken place over the developed world - although the drop in Ireland lagged behind the rest of the world for  a few years due to the continuing economic deprivation.

There were 64,290 illegitimate children born in Ireland between 1925 and 1960 of which 13,431 children died but that figure is dwarfed by the deaths of 132,387 legitimate children, a figure nearly 10 times greater. Nearly all of these infants and children died from birth defects and diseases, which could not be inoculated against and were incurable at the time.

Compare Deaths by Age Groups THEN and NOW. According to a CSO graph (that compared 1916 to the present day), in 1916 slightly over 8,000 children under the age of 5 died in Ireland - compared to a few hundred in 2014. However in 2014 a little over 8,000 people died in the Age Group 75 - 84 i.e. similar to the number of infants in 1916!  Where children are concerned the pattern of deaths has to an extent been reversed in the last century! This can also be seen in the age group 5 to 14 where close to 2,000 children died in 1916 compared to a tiny number in 2014

Eugene stresses the connection between poverty and childhood death rates, that continues to the present day - and not just in the Third World. He quotes a Newsweek headline from May 2015 "Washington's Poorest Infants are Ten Times More Likely to Die Than Richest" He discusses the claim that Catholic nuns (and the Protestant women who ran Bethany Home) allowed  children to starve to death. 

"The primary evidence put forward for abuse and starvation is the appearance of the word Marasmus. Marasmus found on Death Certificates is what is chiefly used to accuse the nuns and the Protestant women of murder. 

Only 14 out of 796 death certificates from the Tuam home record the cause of death as being due to marasmus (10 as the primary cause) with a further 156 recording debility as the primary and contributory cause of death. It would appear that the journalists sensationalising the murder claims could not find the term debility associated with starvation on Wikipedia, even though it was classified alongside marasmus as ‘wasting disease’ thus they missed the opportunity to increase the number of ‘starved to death’ by tenfold!

"Looking at an extract from the Registrar General's Report for 1919, you can see what the medical profession think Marasmus is. It's a developmental and wasting disease and the three of them are there Atrophy, Debility and Marasmus. THIS is significant. Marasmus was also a killer of infants in Maternity Hospitals outside of Mother and Baby Homes. 

"Here is a Certificate with Marasmus on it. It's from the Adelaide Protestant Hospital (now amalgamated with Tallaght Hospital). Here we have evidence of Murder, Slaughter! [3 month  old infant died of Marasmus 25 July 1935]

Here we have Marasmus again. It's at Temple St Children's Hospital - murder taking place there! [10 week old infant died of Marasmus 21 May 1942] 

Here is another case of Marasmus where the child died at home and death has been certified by a medical professional. A doctor visited the home, certified that a child suffered from Marasmus and subsequently when the child died of Marasmus.[6 months old child, died of Marasmus, 26 November 1942, Ashtown

"Here is the famous Rotunda Hospital. Two cases of Murder there as well! [One infant died on 13 May 1942 aged 15 days and the second on 14 May 1942 aged 7 weeks, both from Marasmus]

"Here is an advertisement entitled "CURE OF MARASMUS: At seven months, she weighed under nine pounds". If Marasmus is Starvation as they are trying to make out, why is there a cure for it? Surely it's food or adequate food? [The Evening Herald, 3 March 1902]

"Here is a newspaper article from 1925 headed Death of Nurse Child. It states that Death from Marasmus was the verdict returned at an inquest held at Sir Patrick Dun’s Hospital on the body of a 9 months old nurse child of Thorncastle St., Ringsend. The coroner said that because of the condition of the child when it was brought to the hospital, the house surgeon was of the opinion that it had died from starvation but the post mortem showed that death was due to natural causes. The child had been under treatment for six months  in the Children’s Hospital, Harcourt St. and did not seem to improve. Dr. Hogan, house surgeon, stated death was due to marasmus, the child not being able to assimilate the nourishment given it. The jury found in accordance with the evidence."

i.e. the child did not die from starvation!

Rory Connor: False Allegations of Child Abuse Against the Catholic Church, including Homicide

SUMMARY: My talk is based on my Blog article "Blood Libel in Ireland - Directed Against Catholics not Jews!".  I had originally intended to make limited reference to the Tuam Home itself BUT I had come to realise that it also included references to the Nazi Holocaust and claims that the Bon Secours Sisters had starved children to death (an issue highlighted by Eugene Jordan in his talk). Accordingly Tuam assumed a higher profile than I first thought necessary. In the above-mentioned article I assumed that Ireland's Blood Libel hysteria had come to an end in 2010 when the Gardai informed the then Minister for Justice that their year long inquiry into the murder of Bernadette Connolly in 1970, had disclosed NO evidence of involvement by the Catholic Church. But of course, anti-clerics - like anti-Semites - are immune to rational considerations and an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" opens with the following:

Seventy years ago, on the orders of a maniac, little children and babies were herded into barren camps in Germany and occupied Poland by men in black uniforms. They were starved to death in those camps; sometimes they had hideous medical experiments carried out upon them while alive, so hideous the silence of death was probably merciful. And when they died, their little bodies were thrown into huge pits. Because they were scum: Jewish scum.

[I could also have pointed out that Emer O'Kelly twice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters in her Sunday Independent article  i.e. the wrong nuns!]

I date the start of my present "Crusade" to 25 September 1999 when the Irish Times published an article by Patsy McGarry quoting a leading member of Survivors of Child Abuse Ireland who claimed he had attended the funerals of boys in Artane who died after being punched by a Christian Brother. No boy died of ANY cause while this gentleman was in Artane Industrial School! There were numerous such allegations published and broadcast between about 1997 and 2010. As indicated in "Blood Libel in Ireland" the first and last related to the deaths of real children - reinterpreted to blame the Catholic Church - but in between hysteria reigned in the media and there were a number of articles and broadcasts in which the Christian Brothers were accused of killing non-existent boys. I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders" to describe the latter. 

About 2000 and again in 2001, I approached the Gardai (Irish police) about two of these Murder of the Undead claims (by the Irish Times and TV3 respectively) as I felt they must be in breach of the Prevention of Incitement to Hatred Act 1989. The Director of Public Prosecutions declined to prosecute - perhaps on the basis that false allegations of child killing do not PROVE that the media are motivated by hatred!  In 2004 I approached the Irish Human Rights Commission who were no help at all. (One reason they gave me for refusing to look into the issue of false allegations of child murder, was that it wasn't in their Three Year Plan!) However my dealings with the IHRC inspired me to summarise the allegations of child murder against the Catholic Church into one document. The above-mentioned article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews" is an updated version of that 2004 document.

Tuam Mother and Baby Home: The REAL Story (Brian Nugent)

SUMMARY: The Tuam controversy alleges that babies were buried in a septic tank. This arises from no other source than the coincidence that the area of the current graveyard of the Children's Home, corresponds with old maps referring to a 'cesspool' attached to the old workhouse, as discovered by Catherine Corless. But this can be easily disproved as insignificant, for example:

- the cesspool corresponds to about a quarter of the area of the current graveyard, but that graveyard was condensed drastically around 1980 and was a much bigger area when the nuns were there which therefore makes it unlikely that they buried bodies at that exact spot;

- the large old cesspool, was only an over ground structure where manure was temporarily placed before being sold off to use on farms, therefore it isn't very significant to say that the same area could be used for burials some 100 years later;

- and it can be easily proved that the bones discovered by recent excavations are reburials by the County Council during c.1970-1981, creating a dedicated structure, an Ossuary, to house bones thrown up by their development of the site during that period. This of course is long after the nuns had left.

 A Discussion about Tuam and other topics

SUMMARY: The seminar ended with a discussion among the three speakers. Rory described some of the atmosphere in the Irish religious orders and congregations when these scandals broke. One congregation of nuns went from naivete, in cooperating and apologising enthusiastically with sometimes unfair allegations, to terror, as they realised to what extent it was a witch hunt against the Catholic Church. Hence his blog is called irishsalem.blogspot.com (with reference to the original Salem Witch-hunt).

[I also spoke of my Novice Master in the De La Salle Brothers, Brother Maurice Kirk, a conservative who nonetheless invited the "radical priest" Fr Michael Sweetman SJ to give us our 8-day Retreat at the end of the novitiate - August/September 1967. I suppose I am a relic of that long ago era that might have been a historical Turning Point - but History failed to turn and the world is as it is now!].   

Eugene pointed out that when the Ryan Commission expanded its remit to include physical abuse, rather than just sexual, then any teacher – and maybe parent – of that time could have fallen foul of their criticisms because corporal punishment was widespread everywhere at the time, not  just among the religious orders.

Meanwhile Brian pointed out the too trusting attitude that the modern Irish Church has to the State with respect to these inquiries. The Church overdoes its cooperation with the inquiries expecting justice, whereas some in the State see the advantage in discrediting the Church in the eyes of the populace, to assist in their various referenda campaigns etc

My Conclusion 

An article by Alison O'Reilly in the Irish Daily Mail on 8 April 2017 is headed "We Want Inquests Into All Deaths, Tuam Victims Tell Zappone" and begins

The families of the children buried in a mass grave in Tuam have told the Minister for Children, 'We want an inquest into all the children's death', the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.. It follows a two-hour meeting which took place yesterday between the Minister for Children Katherine Zappone and local Government Minister Simon Coveney as well as Kevin O'Kelly, chief executive of Galway County Council  and survivors of the home as well as relatives....

Those in attendance included local historian Catherine Corless who uncovered the names of the 796 children who died in the home, as well as Tuam resident John Rodgers, PJ Haverty, Walter Francis and and Michael O'Flaherty....During the meeting, Ms Zappone was given a brief submission by solicitor for some of the residents Kevin Higgins. In it he asked that the Government 'act with urgency' and to hold  a proper coroner's inquiry. The submission also said 'the failure of the Attorney General to invoke 24 of the Coroners Act as early as 2014 represented a serious failure of judgement'. It also urged against carrying out inquests into 'unidentified infants', and sought individual post mortems for each body....

Catherine Corless said: 'I am quite pleased, I expected an hour but they gave us a good bit of their time. It was good. They were fairly challenged and everyone got a chance to talk. They need an inquest, there's no point in moving them into a big grave.'.[my emphasis]

Regarding Inquests and Inquest reports, Citizen's Information states that: 

If a person dies and the death cannot be explained, an inquest may be held to establish the facts of the death, such as where and how the death occurred. An inquest is an official, public enquiry, led by the Coroner (and in some cases involving a jury) into the cause of a sudden, unexplained or violent death. An inquest is not usually held if a post-mortem examination of the body can explain the cause of death. [My emphasis]

 So it seems we are back where it all began more than 20 years ago with claims that Catholic nuns - in 1997 it was the Sisters of Mercy - were criminally responsible for the deaths of children in their care. All deaths in the Tuam Home were certified by doctors appointed by Galway County Council so it is clear that the reputations of those doctors are also being trashed!

Perhaps Catholic activists like myself should respond in kind? I noted above that a doctor at the Rotunda Maternity Hospital certified two infant deaths from Marasmus on consecutive days in May 1942. Compare the Tuam Home where doctors certified 14 Marasmus deaths over a period of 36 years (1925-1961)! Moreover the Rotunda, founded in 1745, did not get its first Catholic Master until 1995! Is not this deeply suspicious? Perhaps we should have a series of inquests on all Catholic children who died in the Rotunda from the foundation of the State until 1995. To reduce the size of the task, we could include only cases where the Death Certificate for a Catholic child was signed by a Protestant doctor! The resulting investigation should be of no greater size than holding inquests into the deaths of the 796 children who died in Tuam.

Rory Connor

30 October 2020