Deaths of Children in Mother and Baby Care Homes (did they die of starvation?)

This is Eugene Jordan, past President of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society being interviewed by Niall McConnell of Síol na hÉireann on 15 February 2021. The topics include naming and shaming the politicians who spread false information regarding the deaths of children, comparing religious run Homes to secular County Homes plus the living and social conditions in Ireland during the first half of the 20th century.

[ See previous articles on the Tuam Babies especially "Seminar on Tuam Children's' Home" and "Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary" ]

 Eugene Jordan Exposes lies of the Mother & Baby Care Homes  15/2/21

The above YouTube video consists of  an Introduction only. The full video interview is HERE: 

Eugene Jordan Exposes lies of the Mother & Baby care homes:

Eugene: Irish politicians took the word "Marasmus", which appeared as a cause of death on a small number of death certificates as evidence of starvation. It was a lie, and that has been proven in the  Final Report of Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation. Will politicians have the guts to do the right thing and apologise for misleading the people?

(A) Eugene Jordan: Politicians and "Children Starved to Death"

The following quotations are from Eugene Jordan's website FALSE HISTORY DEBUNKED and specifically from his article Political Fantasy – Children Starved to Death The first quote is from Chapter 33: Deaths of the Final Report of the Commission - concerning the Marasmus issue

33. 5. Some commentators have concluded that infant deaths which occurred in mother and baby homes due to marasmus indicates that infants were neglected, not appropriately cared for, and/or wilfully starved to death in these institutions.

However, marasmus was a frequently cited cause of infant deaths in institutional, hospital and community settings in early twentieth-century Ireland. The Commission considers it unlikely that deaths in hospitals and family homes were due to wilful neglect and so cannot conclude that the term marasmus denotes wilful neglect in mother and baby homes. The more likely explanation is that marasmus as a cause of death was cited when an infant failed to thrive due to malabsorption of essential nutrients due to an underlying, undiagnosed medical condition. 

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 27 Jun 2012 

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin)
In 1939, the Government’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer refuted damning public and health inspectorate concerns in regard to the standards of care at Bethany Home on the basis of a barbaric belief that it was normal for children of unmarried mothers to suffer from starvation. While no action was taken by the Government to protect the children in Bethany Home, which was a Protestant run home, the State did force the home to cease admitting Catholic mothers and babies. What does that say about the State, its orientation and actions?

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 10 Dec 2013 Bethany Home: Motion [Private Members] 

Deputy Mary Lou McDonald (Sinn Féin)
Evidence in the public domain and records held by Departments tell us this, yet the Minister of State will table an amendment to the Sinn Féin motion that is beyond a distortion of the truth. She has underpinned her amendment with an argument set out in the same vein as that used by the State’s deputy chief medical adviser in the 1930s. He was of the view that children born outside of marriage were prone to starvation and, judging by the amendment before us, it appears the Government shares this view.

In 1939, the State’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer visited Bethany and attributed the ill health of children – rickets, scalding and purulent conjunctivitis – in the home to the fact that they were “illegitimate” and, therefore, “delicate” and prone to starvation. Are the Minister of State and the Government supporting that view in 2013?

The State colluded. In 1939, for example, the deputy chief medical adviser, Dr. Winslow Sterling Berry, dismissed public concerns and even the concerns of his own health inspectors, by claiming that it was “well known that illegitimate children are delicate and marasmic” – in other words, that they suffered from starvation.

Deputy Niall Collins (Fianna Fáil)

Records reveal that 54 of the children had died from convulsions, 41 from heart failure and 26 from marasmus, a form of malnutrition. 

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 26 Feb 2013  Magdalen Laundries Report: Statements (Resumed) 

Deputy Robert Dowds (Labour Party)

Sterling Berry, in 1939. In his report, Berry reported that it was well recognised that a large number of illegitimate children were delicate and marasmic, which means they were suffering the effects of starvation. I stress that this is from the report of an inspection of the home by the State. Was the State involved, was it indifferent to their plight and did the State fail them? The answer is obviously “Yes”.

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Féin)
The big question that arises during this debate, when one steps back from the apology, is why it took the State so long to accept that it played a central and crucial part in supplying the women who were enslaved, starved, ill-treated, abused and treated with cold contempt.

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 10 Jun 2014 

Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Sinn Féin) 

Cemetery records indicate that the causes of death included 54 from convulsions, 41 from heart failure, 26 from starvation and seven from pneumonia. 

[NOTE: the death certs record marasmus not starvation]

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 11 Jun 2014 Death and Burial of Children in Mother and Baby Homes: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] 

Deputy Seamus Healy (Independent)

State inspection reports described children as being fragile, pot-bellied and emaciated. Cause of death was regularly recorded as starvation. [NO marasmus]

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett (Solidarity–People Before Profit)

Children died of starvation or were used as guinea pigs, while families were ripped apart. It is an appalling stain on our history.

Deputy Ciara Conway (Labour Party)

Young women were forcibly separated first from their communities, then from any sense of pride or self worth and then from their babies. Their babies were neglected and starved, with illnesses untreated. They were seen as worthless and buried, ultimately, in unmarked graves, left in the end without even an identity.

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Féin)

Women’s children were starved and disease, including TB, was rampant. The child mortality rate was massively higher in these institutions than among the general public and the State allowed this to go on. 

Seanad Éireann debate – Tuesday, 27 Jan 2015 
Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Motion 

Senator Marie Moloney (Labour)
State inspection reports described children as being fragile, emaciated and pot-bellied. Cause of death was often recorded as starvation. [NO: marasmus]

Dáil Éireann debate – Thursday, 9 Mar 2017: Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements 

Deputy Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fáil)
What was uncovered in Tuam is only the tip of the iceberg. We do not know exactly how these babies died and it seems likely they were left to starve or die in the cold, as the mortality rate is too high to suggest otherwise.

Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Sinn Féin)
In Sean Ross Abbey, the death register lists a total of 269 deaths between 1934 and 1967, but some of those buried in the plot there are not listed on the register. It is also deeply shocking and appalling to learn that the main cause of death in the case of some 20% of the deaths in Bessborough was marasmus or severe malnutrition – in other words, death by hunger was happening in the 1940s and 1950s in Cork. At a minimum, we need to expand drastically the terms of reference of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.

Deputy Mick Barry (Irish Solidarity–People Before Profit)
According to a former chief medical officer of the State, James Deeny, in his autobiography, To Cure and to Care, in one year alone, of the 180 children born in the home 100 died. One in five of those who died in the 1934 to 1953 period died of marasmus, that is, severe malnutrition.

Seanad Éireann debate – Thursday, 9 Mar 2017 
Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) [Daughter of President Michael D Higgins]  

There were 472 deaths in 19 years in the Bessborough home. Some 80 of those children were suffering from marasmus, which means severe malnutrition, including babies who have in many cases been taken away from the arms of their mothers, who have not been allowed to breast-feed them. Children suffering from malnutrition – an issue which is easy to control, deal with and address – represent almost 20% of known deaths in a short period in the Bessborough home alone, as we heard in the story earlier.

Senator Catherine Noone (Fine Gael)
Women were starved, neglected and hidden from society. They suffered horrendous abuse. It is imperative that we now respond with sensitivity and respect to what has been unearthed.

Dáil Éireann debate – Tuesday, 7 Mar 2017: Leaders’ Questions

The Taoiseach (Enda Kenny, Fine Gael)
We gave them up because of our perverse, in fact, morbid relationship with what is called respectability. Indeed, for a while it seemed as if in Ireland our women had the amazing capacity to self-impregnate. For their trouble, we took their babies and gifted them, sold them, trafficked them, starved them, neglected them or denied them to the point of their disappearance from our hearts, our sight, our country and, in the case of Tuam and possibly other places, from life itself.

Dáil Éireann debate – Wednesday, 22 Mar 2017: Commission of Investigation Announcement on Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements (Resumed)

Deputy Seán Crowe (Sinn Fein)
They have come up to me and started telling the story of what they went through – the starvation, abuse, malnutrition and the fact their spirit was broken. That is what we did. We stripped people and took their clothes away. We took their identity, beat them and starved them. This was all done for what was supposed to be the greater good of some individuals or idea.

Dáil Éireann debate – Thursday, 18 Jan 2018: Report of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution: Statements (Resumed)

Deputy Kate O’Connell (Fine Gael)
We murdered them in their hundreds through neglect and hate, brutalised them in the name of salvation and enslaved them in the name of redemption.

My Comment: Most of this hysteria is coming from Sinn Fein, Labour and Independent Deputies - precisely the people who re likely to form a Government following the next General Election in Ireland. However they are ably backed by Fine Gael including former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny and the craziest comment of all comes from former Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell. If Sinn Fein come to power and try to use undemocratic methods to implement populist but unviable economic polices, Fine Gael don't have the moral courage to stop them. 

(B) The Ravings of Junior Minister John Halligan - AND the Media

Some of the above can be (partly) explained by confusion concerning the meaning of the term "Marasmus" - that does not indicate deliberate starvation by nuns, or anyone else. However a more generic kind of hysteria is also loose in this country. Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell exemplifies it  (last quote above) as does former Junior Minister (for Training and Skills) John Halligan. See Irish Times article dated 11 March 2017  "Death Rates in Mother and Baby Homes similar to Concentration Camps’" subtitled "Minister of State John Halligan says Old Age should not Diminish Responsibility for a Crime"

Independent Alliance minister John Halligan has compared child mortality rates in mother and baby homes to Nazi concentration camps. The Waterford TD also said religious orders found guilty of criminal neglect should have their assets seized. The Minister of State for Training and Skills said elderly nuns who worked in the homes should be interviewed as part of expected criminal investigations to be conducted by gardaí.

“Old age should not diminish accountability for any crime or alleged crime. If you bear in mind that the child mortality rate at Bessborough in 1943 was approaching 70 per cent, sure that’s similar to concentration camps,” he said. “Are we seriously saying that because somebody is ill or aged that we shouldn’t at least interview them? If you look at what’s happened at Belsen, Auschwitz, Dachau, even up to last year individuals who are alleged to have carried out horrendous crimes in their 80s and 90s were interviewed.”

Mr Halligan was speaking to RTÉ Radio on Saturday in the wake of confirmation last week from the Mother and Baby Homes Commission that “significant quantities” of human remains found at a mother and baby home in Tuam run by the Bon Secours Sisters belonged to young infants. Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone is said to be considering broadening the commission of inquiry’s remit to include other homes beyond Tuam, and will examine her options over the coming weeks.

Referring to State grants paid to the Bon Secours order for maintenance of children in its care as well as sums received through the sale of children to foster parents in the US, Mr Halligan said monies should be seized if significant wrongdoing is established. “I think there has to be an investigation, everybody has to be interviewed, and if it is found that they’re guilty of neglect, well their assets should be seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau, ” he said.

Much of this hysteria was whipped up by the media with politicians jumping on the band-wagon to get votes (although I doubt if people like John Halligan and Kate O'Connell needed any encouragement). I wrote about the media background in "Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary regarding Tuam Home" It includes an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" that 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.

During the course of the article Emer O'Kelly trice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters i.e. the wrong nuns! 

The demonising of the nuns is not confined to bigoted anti-clerics: "Progressive" priests who like to make themselves popular with the media also get in on the act. On 1 June 2014  Fr Brian D’Arcy had an  article in the Sunday World entitled “Fr Brian: Baby Graves are Our Greatest Crime” that begins as follows:

“When I first heard the news that more than 800 babies were buried in what was formerly a septic tank I was astonished – because initially I thought it happened in some famine-stricken country today. Then I thought I was hearing about Nazi Germany…..”  

It's in no way surprising that four weeks later the same same Sunday World carried an article subtitled “Councillor Seeking Justice For ‘Murder’ of Babies" It includes THIS:

I saw a baby in a nun’s arms and blood dripping along the floor. I saw another nun standing with a shovel in her hand. I was a 12 year old. I knew they were going out to do something, or dig a hole for that child but nobody would listen to me.

The claims of child murder (and dumping babies in a cess pit) are complete lunacy comparable to the 19th century hysteria in Canada over the "Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk" that also involved claims of infanticide by nuns in Montreal. As per the Wikipedia article on Maria Monk: "If the sexual union produced a baby, it was baptized and then strangled and dumped into a lime pit in the basement." Of course all Catholic priests and bishops denounced the allegations and supported the nuns at the time. "Progressive" priests and Bishops (like recently retired Archbishop Diarmuid Martin)  who endorse secular anti-clericalism are a modern phenomena! 

(C) Commission Acknowledges Existence of False Allegations!

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission actually acknowledges that some allegations of  abuse are false! This is a surprise to me given that the Ryan Commission (to which I gave evidence) did no such thing.  An article in the Irish Times by Patsy McGarry dated 14 January 2021 headed "Commission dealt with 1.3m documents and held 195 hearings" has as its subheading "Report from body states that its conclusions ‘may not accord with prevailing narrative’" and begins

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission states in bold type in its report that “the conclusions it reaches may not always accord with the prevailing narrative”. As well as adhering to its terms of reference, it says: “It must look at all the available evidence and reach conclusions based on that evidence. It must be objective, rigorous and thorough........”

The confidential committee report “outlines the experiences of those who chose to recount their experiences. They are not a representative sample of the residents of the institutions under investigation,” it said. And while there was “no doubt that the witnesses recounted their experiences as honestly as possible”, it had “concerns about the contamination of some evidence. A number of witnesses gave evidence that was clearly incorrect. This contamination probably occurred because of meetings with other residents and inaccurate media coverage,” it said.

 

(D) Bethany Mother and Baby Home - a PROTESTANT Institution

I was slightly surprised to see that the Protestant Bethany Home was also the subject of false allegations of starving children - coming mainly (of course) from Sinn Fein but Deputy Niall Collins of Fianna Fail makes a contribution as well by referring to Marasmus as "a form of malnutrition"., This seems to be the sole Fianna Fail contribution to this brand of hysteria. It does indicate that irrational attacks on the Catholic Church have a way of spreading.- and corrupting the entire society.

However the Catholic Church was always the main focus of attack - as pointed out by David Quinn in article in the Irish Independent on 10 March 2017 Harsh Victorian Morality at Core of Mother and Baby Home Scandals He contrasts the attitude of politicians to the Tuam Home run by Bon Secours Sisters vis a vis the Bethany Home. First he quotes the words of the then Fine Gael Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny in the Dail (Irish Parliament) that week:

 "Tuam is not just a burial ground, it is a social and cultural sepulchre. That is what it is. As a society in the so-called 'good old days', we did not just hide away the dead bodies of tiny human beings, we dug deep and deeper still to bury our compassion, our mercy and our humanity itself. No nuns broke into our homes to kidnap our children. We gave them up to what we convinced ourselves was the nuns' care."

David Quinn points out that our Prime Minister's tone and his words contrasted very sharply with those of the Labour Party's Kathleen Lynch in 2013 when she addressed the Dáil about Bethany Home, which also housed unmarried mothers and their babies. Ms Lynch, then the junior minister in the Department of Justice, used much softer language than the Taoiseach, even though hundreds of babies also died in Bethany Home and were buried in an unmarked grave.

Explaining the high death rate in the Protestant-run institution she said: "Unfortunately, poverty and disease were commonplace in Ireland up to the 1950s and this was reflected in infant mortality rates. Infant mortality rates in the 1940s were at a level that is hard to comprehend today, about 20 times higher than now and that figure applies across the entire population. For those who were malnourished and subject to disease and a lack of hygiene, the figures would have been higher still."

Responding to critics of the home, she said: "Our Constitution demands we respect the rules of natural justice. People are entitled to a fair hearing and an opportunity to protect their good name…it seems to have been accepted at the time that Bethany Home was run by people with charitable motives."

 It's clear that different moral standards are being applied to Catholic and non-Catholic institutions and personnel. However it seems to me that the differences are lessening now as society becomes more secular and ALL forms of Christianity are coming under attack from politicians who stand for nothing and therefore concentrate on spewing hatred at their religious adversaries!

(E) My Conclusion - Blood Libel Forever?

(i) This hysteria can be said to have begun in 1997 with an article in The Mirror (by their Irish editor Neil Leslie) entitled HOT POKER WAS USED ON LITTLE MARION.. NO CASH WILL GET HER BACK; I THINK MY BABY WAS MURDERED AT THE ORPHANAGE, SAYS PAYOUT MUM. concerning the death of baby Marion Howe in 1955 i.e. 42 years previously. THAT libel was aimed at the Sisters of Mercy and specifically at the late Sister Xavieria Lally. However in subsequent years the MAIN targets were the Christian Brothers. Leaders of four "Victim" groups were quoted in the media as claiming that the Brothers had killed boys in their care, especially in Artane and Letterfrack industrial schools. A number of these allegations related to periods when no boy died of ANY cause (!) so I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders". For obvious reasons accusers did not normally state the names of the killer Brothers! The initial phase of our Blood Libel hysteria may be said to have ended in 2009/10 with a Garda investigation into claims that the Catholic Church colluded with Garda authorities in the case of the unsolved murder of schoolgirl Bernadette Connolly in 1970. The immediate targets of the child murder claim were members of the Passionist Order but the suggestion was that Archbishop John Charles McQuaid intervened to stop the Garda investigation.

I summarised this phase of our witch-hunt in my article "Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews!"

(ii) Over the years I thought on a few occasions, that the Blood Libel hysteria was played out. The above article was based on one I submitted to the Sunday Tribune in 2006; this related mainly to the Christian Brothers and the Murder of the Undead claims. I had to update it following the manufactured hysteria in 2009 concerning the death of Bernadette Connolly, four decades previously - and for a time I thought THAT was the end! I once wrote that Blood Libel in Ireland followed  a logical trajectory in that 

• it began in 1997 with an allegation that related to the death of a REAL baby - because Blood Libel  was new in Ireland and needed the appearance of credibility
• it  came to an end in 2010 with reference to the unsolved murder of a REAL child - because several claims had been refuted and credibility was again a factor BUT
• between these two dates, anti-clerical Hysteria reigned supreme and journalists thought they could get away with anything including "Murder of the Undead" allegations!

Even THAT cynical analysis now looks too hopeful with allegations that nuns starved babies in the Mother and Baby Homes. The fact that the Report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes refuted those claims, won't put a stop to our anti-clerical hysteria, if the history of the last quarter-century is anything to go by.

(iii) The chief proponents of the death by starvation narrative were Sinn Fein (including leader Mary Lou McDonald) and other left-wing Deputies and Senators -- including Senator Alice-Mary Higgins (Ind) the daughter of President Michael D Higgins. These are the people who are likely to form a Government after the next General Election (given that we are now governed by a coalition of Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and the Greens). However the anti-clerical hysteria promoted by Sinn Fein was echoed by Fine Gael - including their former leader and Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The most grotesque comment of all was actually made by  then Fine Gael Deputy Kate O'Connell: 

We murdered them in their hundreds through neglect and hate, brutalised them in the name of salvation and enslaved them in the name of redemption. 

What sort of Opposition are Fine Gael going to provide to a Government dominated by Sinn Fein? If Sinn Fein try to pass dubious legislation, is President Michael D going to refer it to the Supreme Court (given his expressed admiration for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez)?  I have written about this issue at the end of my article "EU Commissioner Phil Hogan Forced to Resign...." - section (F) "Conclusion: Sinn Fein and Antifa"

(iv) Forthcoming Book by Eugene Jordan "The Irish Attack on Christianity - The Case for the Defence"

In March 2021 a book by Eugene Jordan with the above title is due to be published. He writes that Irish Christianity has been under attack for more than seven decades now. The attacks  increased in ferocity in the second decade of the twenty-first century and reached an extraordinary level of frenzy when Christian-run Mother and Baby homes were accused of starving and murdering children in their care. These allegations are lies, the evidence to disprove the falsehoods is abundant and simple to understand, yet the Irish political establishment and media have chosen to ignore it.

The book essentially tells the story of how the Irish came to hate the Irish - especially the Catholic Church - and thrashes out the causes at the court of reason.

As Ireland enters the third decade of the twenty-first century, it stands at the most embarrassing moment in its intellectual history. The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes finished and published its final report, which has again been subject to biased misreporting. The commission has rubbished many of the scandal propagators’ notorious claims to their credit but has made several significant errors of its own. 

 

Open Letter to Archbishop Michael Neary regarding Tuam Home

 

Most Reverend Michael Neary, Archbishop of Tuam

In a sermon in the Cathedral of the Assumption, Tuam on 11 March 2017 you asked - in relation to the women and children of the former Mother and Baby Home in Tuam: “How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?”

I responded at the time. To understand my response in context you will need to read my article The Tuam Babies and the Bon Secours Nuns [3]

I would answer the Archbishop as follows: The late Pablo McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man who presumably qualified as one of “our most vulnerable” and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall was hardly a member of high society. McCabe had no money but prior to 1999 no woman had ever been convicted of rape so McCabe was accused to make the allegation appear more plausible. The leaders of the Sisters of Mercy betrayed both of them and sided with the accusers. Archbishop what makes you think that the current accusers are more plausible? Do you really find it acceptable that a Government Minister [John Halligan] should refer to Nazis and talk about Belsen, Auschwitz and Dachau? Archbishop, if a Garda investigation into the Tuam Home produces no evidence to support such claims will you do or say anything at all? Or will you remain silent like the current leaders of the Sisters of Mercy?

My response to you forms part of Comment 53 in the article (Don't worry - I don't include all the comments!). The preceding Comment 52 summaries the scandal surrounding the wrongful convictions of Pablo McCabe and former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall AND also the paranoid utterances of former Junior Minister John Halligan. 

History Seminar on Tuam Mother and Babies Home

There have been a lot of developments since 2017 not least our Seminar on Tuam Children's Home  that we held in Galway on 4 October 2020. We had to transfer it from Dublin because your colleague Diarmuid Martin cancelled our Dublin venue at the last moment - supposedly on health grounds although we had been approved by the health authorities!

In my talk I referred to an article by Emer O'Kelly in the Sunday Independent on 8 June 2014 "Tuam Babies Cry Not For Justice But For Vengeance" that 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.

During the course of the article Emer O'Kelly trice denounces the Good Shepherd Sisters i.e. the wrong nuns!  (NOTE [1] )

Thus It's hardly surprising  to read in a recent article in the Irish Times by Stephanie Walsh a retired teacher who specialised in Relationships and Sexuality Education.  Good work of religious in aiding single mothers now largely forgotten (subtitle "In the 1970s church people provided more assistance to women in need than secular society")

Some years ago I met a Good Shepherd Sister who had placed women with us. I asked why the Sisters hadn’t publicly defended the important role they had played in improving the lives of single pregnant women. She answered that it was impossible to get a fair hearing in the media that had demonised all religious involved in that work.

In my experience, church women and men provided more assistance to women in need in the 70s than did the secular community. Most of the social workers who contacted our family were religious Sisters; many of the women in trouble were referred by priests.

The demonising of the nuns is not confined to bigoted anti-clerics: "Progressive" priests who like to make themselves popular with the media also get in on the act. In June 2014  Fr Brian D’Arcy had an  article in the Sunday World entitled “Fr Brian: Baby Graves are Our Greatest Crime” that includes the following:

“When I first heard the news that more than 800 babies were buried in what was formerly a septic tank I was astonished – because initially I thought it happened in some famine-stricken country today. Then I thought I was hearing about Nazi Germany…..” etc 

Unfortunately Fr Brian's Sunday World article is no longer online but a shorter version is available  in the Irish Examiner dated 5 June 2014 entitled Disposal of babies' bodies in Tuam 'as bad as Nazi Germany': Fr Brian Darcy 

Well-known cleric Fr Brian Darcy has said the discovery of almost 800 babies bodies next to a Galway mother and baby home is as bad as anything that happened in Nazi Germany. The Government has today confirmed that a "scoping exercise" is underway to determine whether other mass graves such as that found in Tuam exist in other parts of the country.

Fr Brian Darcy said he thought previous scandals involving the Church had left him "unshockable", but that this was a shocking as something that happened in Germany during World War II. He added that people needed to be brought to justice for "sinful crimes". "I think if the facts are as bad as they seem to be, and I have no reason to doubt that, I think this will cause a massive revolution about the kind of country that we had and the kind of country that we're all children of."

(Helpful key words after the article include "Nazi Germany" and "World War II") (NOTE [2] )

In contrast with this  you have Irish atheist and editor of the SpikedOnLine magazine Brendan O'Neill who wrote an article on 9 June 2014  “The Tuam Tank: Another Myth about Evil Ireland” with subtitle  “The obsession with Ireland’s dark past has officially become unhinged.”  He quotes some of the world-wide headlines:

Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, declared the Washington Post. ‘800 skeletons of babies found inside tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers’, said the New York Daily News. ‘Galway historian finds 800 babies in septic tank grave’, said the Boston Globe. ‘The bodies of 800 babies were found in the septic tank of a former home for unwed mothers in Ireland’, cried Buzzfeed.    ......The blogosphere and Twitter hordes went even further than the mainstream media, with whispers about the 800 babies having been murdered by the nuns and demands for the UN to investigate ‘crimes against humanity’ in Tuam.

 Unlike Fr Brian, Brendan O'Neill believes it is nonsense. However it certainly wasn't just "Twitter hordes" that suggested the nuns murdered babies. The Sunday World - for which Fr Brian has written for many years - had a story on 29 June 2014 subtitled “Councillor Seeking Justice For ‘Murder’ of Babies” about then People Before Profit councillor Deirdre Wadding. The following is an extract:

Deirdre said that what was happening to single mothers in Ireland even in the 1980s was a form of “torture”. “In later years, there was brutality, what you would call torture,” she said, describing the babies bodies found in the septic tank in Tuam as “nothing short of murder”. “Children seem to have been allowed to die. No doubt the cracks will uncover as time goes on and we can be sure if it happened in Tuam it happened elsewhere. We have to seek justice. Somebody has to be responsible for this. ……If that means individuals being brought to court, jail sentences, whatever it means, we cannot hold back”.

Another woman describes a “sinister scene” in the Good Shepherd convent in New Ross in 1964.

I saw a baby in a nun’s arms and blood dripping along the floor. I saw another nun standing with a shovel in her hand. I was a 12 year old. I knew they were going out to do something, or dig a hole for that child but nobody would listen to me.

The claims of child murder and dumping babies in a cess pit are complete lunacy comparable to the 19th century hysteria in Canada over the "Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk" that also involved claims of infanticide by nuns in Montreal. The difference is that then, Catholic Bishops and clergy stood firmly in support of the nuns whereas now you are silent when not actively throwing them to the wolves! 

To answer your question

So to answer your question: How could the culture of Irish society, which purported to be defined by Christian values, have allowed itself to behave in such a manner towards our most vulnerable?” Before you respond to the publication of the Report on Mother and Babies Homes today, perhaps you will take time to consider just WHO are the "vulnerable" ones here? Is it the "Survivors" backed by all the power of Media and State  or the nuns in general, and the Bon Secours Sisters in particular, who have been subjected to obscene abuse - up to and including Blood Libel?

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor

PS You are well aware of the lie spread worldwide by the media a few years ago that the Catholic Church refused to baptise the children of unmarried mothers and the apology issued by Associated Press at the behest of the Jesuit Magazine "America": Tuam Babies and Associated Press Apology to Bon Secours Sisters It was a lie directed at your own predecessors more than at the Bon Secours Sisters but most journalists were probably too ignorant to realise this! It doesn't measure up to the Nazi Nun claims but it is important  because it can be PROVEN false - even 60 years after the Tuam Home closed. 

NOTES

[1] And THIS is Emer O'Kelly writing about Nora Wall (extract from the Wikipedia article on Nora). It's clear that her rant against the Bon Secours/Good Shepherd nuns was not an aberration!

On 28 November 1999, the Sunday Independent published an article entitled "Judge reflects a nation's outrage" by columnist Emer O'Kelly. The  title refers to the sentencing by Judge Anthony Murphy of a Brother of Charity to 36 years imprisonment for the physical and sexual abuse of children. However the article contains these words about the Nora Wall case:

When the former Mercy nun Nora Wall was vindicated, and an announcement was made that she was not to be retried for rape, there was an outcry from some members of the public about the way she had been vilified before her conviction was set aside. The horrible reality of our society is that so many appalling crimes of abuse of children by Catholic religious have been proved in the courts that many people are inclined to believe that no cleric, man or woman, accused of such crimes can possibly be innocent. And that is not the fault of public opinion. It is in large measure the fault of the religious authorities who seem more concerned with limiting the damage to their own reputations and standing than in acknowledging their collective guilt and active negligence.

[ Emer O'Kelly has, of course, nothing to say about Nora's co-accused, homeless  schizophrenic Pablo McCabe who was accused solely in order to make Ireland's first rape allegation against a woman, look more plausible! RC ] 

[2]  An article in the Irish Independent on 5 June 2014 gives a slightly different perspective on Fr Brian's views: Fr Brian D'Arcy: Tuam mass baby grave 'an incredible, awful, unchristian and unsocial thing'  Instead of Nazi Germany, he refers to "a bad regime" and then there is THIS:

He has called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

“It’s not just a sinful approach to life it’s also a serious crime. This seems to have been self-imposed and cruel and ruthless and therefore needs investigated. I presume some of the people from that era are still alive and need to be brought to justice for that. We cannot claim to be pro-life and allow that to happen to children. We need to establish the facts of what did happen but it seems to me that over a short period of life over 800 people weren’t even given recorded deaths, some of whom seem to have died from starvation."

My Submission to The Independent "Future of Media" Commission

 

Professor Brian MacCraith, Chair of the Independent Future of Media Commission

A newly-established Future of Media Commission intends to “chart a pathway” for public service broadcasting and independent media in Ireland. [My emphasis]

In September 2020, the Irish government announced the new Future of Media Commission, which will examine how “public service objectives” can be funded in a sustainable way, with independent editorial oversight and value for money. The Commission will then make a recommendation on its findings to the government.

As an initial step, the Commission is conducting a public consultation by inviting the views of the public on the key questions to be addressed in its work. The closing date for receipt of public submissions was today Friday 8 January 2020 so (as is my habit) I got mine in at the last minute and here it is.

.Question 1. How should Government develop and support the concept and role of public service media and what should its role in relation to public service content in the wider media be?

You ask  "What can be learned from the evolution of public service media over the last decade?"

In 2004 I made an official complaint to Broadcasting Complaints Commission (I think it was then) re RTE's broadcast of the 2002 film "Song for a Raggy Boy" AND  RTE notice afterwards inviting people who had been affected by the film to ring a dedicated phone number to voice their pain. 

I cannot locate my submission now BUT I referred to it in my Blog article 'Recovered Memory' in Ireland and Allegations of Child Abuse" 
specifically in the last sections "Patrick Galvin, 'Song for a Raggy Boy' and 'Recovered Memory' " and the Conclusion. The culminating scene in the FILM features a boy being kicked to death by a "Brother in Christ" (Christian Brother backwards). There is no such scene in the 1991 autobiographical BOOK by Patrick Galvin on which the film is  supposed to be based, nor of sex abuse either. The murder and sex abuse scenes were added to spice up the film!  

When this sort of thing is done to Jews - in the Nazi film Jew Suss that I referred to in my complaint to BCC - it is called Blood Libel. (The 1925 BOOK "Jew Suss"  did not include  Suss raping or killing anyone.)

The Christian Brothers had to issue a statement saying that Patrick Galvin was never in any institution run by them. However BCC rejected my complaint saying "RTE point out that the film is a work of fiction based on a memoir of actual events. Allowing for dramatic licence therefore, everything depicted in the film does not have to be fully accurate." Indeed you could say the same about the Nazi version of Jew Suss compared to the original! WHY did RTE provide a phone number for members of the public who were inspired by events in the film?

This was OVER 10 years ago but RTE continued in the same vein over the last decade. In 2011 they libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds on Prime Time's "Mission to Prey" as having father a child by raping an underage girl. Instead of a normal investigation of the grotesque claim, they door-stopped him after a First Communion service. They then ignored his offer to take a DNA test and broadcast the libel anyway. A NORMAL conman - motivated by desire for money or fame - would have drawn back at the priest's offer of a DNA test but RTE were blinded by an anti-Clerical hatred no better than the anti-Semite variety! 

In 2014 RTE libelled John Waters, Breda O'Brien and other members of the Iona Institute by describing them as Homophobes. It doesn't compare to their previous child rape and murder lies but it stands out because the RTE presenter INVITED "Miss Panti Bliss" to make the comment. To that extent it was well up to RTE's standard! I should also point out that following the libel settlement the then Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte expressed his desire to change the law in order to make it more difficult to sue RTE. If one of his own ideological allies had been libelled, Minister Rabbitte would have said the opposite! I have written about this in "The Role of Pat Rabbitte" 

In 2017 RTE libelled Kevin Myers - well known strong supporter of Israel - as a Holocaust-denier following similar libels by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tanaiste Frances Fitzgerald. It took RTE 2 years to apologise even after the Broadcasting Authority had ruled the claim was false. Kevin Myers said he had feared having to sell his house if he lost the libel case - but of course RTE faced no risk at all. I wrote about this in "Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid"

It is no co-incidence that Kevin Myers is the ONLY journalist to have defended former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall when she was wrongly convicted of rape in 1999. RTE will NEVER libel a "progressive" journalist!

Given THAT background, there's nothing strange about RTE's recent skit featuring God raping Mary and  broadcasting it during the Christmas season on the eve of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on 1st January. There is NO way they would broadcast a skit featuring Muhammed raping a 9 year old girl and do so during Ramadan on the eve of Eid. Just as  they wouldn't libel a Muslim cleric with an accusation of fathering a child by raping a girl. I referred above to RTE being motivated by anti-Clerical Hatred BUT Muslims have clerics as well so anti-Catholic hatred is a better description of their attitude!  

Question 2. How should public service media be financed sustainably?

You ask "What is the best model for future funding of public service media in Ireland? What approach best supports independent editorial oversight while achieving value for money and delivering on public service aims?" 

RTE should be defunded. I read that it receives €180 million from the taxpayer each year. I also see that "public service aims" includes "to ensure that the public has access to high quality, impartial, independent journalism, reporting .. in a balanced way and which contributes to democratic discourse". 

In the interests of "balance" would RTE consider broadcasting the  film "Jew Suss"? It may be as vile as "Song for a Raggy Boy" and includes scenes not depicted in the (somewhat) more realistic BOOK but at least RTE could say "we're not favouring one side over another".  

I was told by a member of Nora Wall's defence team that she was convicted in a climate of hysteria created by the media and SPECIFICALLY by Mary Raftery's States of Fear series, broadcast by RTE just before the trial in 1999! In 2005 I corresponded with then editor of the Irish Times Geraldine Kennedy regarding this issue (among other) and published the exchange on my Blog here: "Mary Raftery and Blood Libel"

This kind of thing has been going on for over 20 years now and I don't believe there is ANY possibility of RTE reforming themselves and delivering "impartial, independent journalism" that "contributes to democratic discourse". In other words, they cannot act as a Public Service Broadcaster and should NOT receive public funds! 

Question 3. How should media be governed and regulated?

You ask "Are current legislative and regulatory controls for public service media adequate?" 

In my answer to Question 1, I pointed out that, following RTE's libel settlement with John Waters and others in 2014, the then Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte expressed his desire to change the law in order to make it more difficult to sue RTE!

Even before being appointed Minister, Pat Rabbitte had a well-earned reputation as an anti-Catholic bigot especially due to his role in bringing down the Reynolds Government in 1994. In relation to THAT episode, historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote "Some became angry that when Harry Whelehan was questioned and denied the existence of a Catholic conspiracy within the Attorney-General's office, he felt the need to defend his right to be a practicing Catholic."  

If someone like Pat Rabbitte can be appointed Minister for Communications then NO conceivable "legislative and regulatory controls" will force RTE to carry out their duty to act as a Public Service Broadcaster. They should be denied public funding and obliged to to fund themselves by advertisements and subscriptions like other media!    

  
Thank you. Your submission has been received!
. 

EU Commissioner Phil Hogan Forced to Resign re "Golfgate", as Supreme Court Judge Seamus Woulfe Refuses

 

Justice Seamus Woulfe (right) pictured with Phil Hogan, who resigned from his role as EU Commissioner for Trade after Golfgate

We have  a corrupt media and political establishment that goes into hysterics over  a minor issue like Golfgate . Meanwhile people who have done great wrong have been promoted to high office and then demoted for ludicrous reasons - as Phil Hogan became Minister and then EU Commissioner after libelling Nora Wall in 2002 and then loses his job over nonsense about attending a gathering of the Oireachtas Golf Society the day after Government health regulations changed! 

Phil Hogan was Chair of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party in April 2002 when he used Parliamentary Privilege to libel former nun Nora Wall and an unnamed senior official in Department of Education whose offence was to give a good report to the Sister of Mercy Home that Nora managed. The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals" said Phil. Our anti-clerical media reported what he had said -  see section (B) below - but there was no follow-up i.e. they knew he was talking nonsense! 

In 2009 - following  publication of the Ryan Report that denounced the Religious Orders - Fine Gael Justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan again used Parliamentary Privilege to repeat Hogan's libels against Nora Wall and the still-unnamed Dept. of Education official and added one against the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray (but for some reason, did not include the bit about nuns forcing children to have sex with animals). Again the media just reported the allegations but without demanding that such grotesque claims be investigated - see section (C). I understand that media reports of Parliamentary proceedings are also privileged but taking them seriously - e.g. by naming the Dept of Education official and demanding he be prosecuted - would leave them open to a libel suit. 

Charlie Flanagan was lucky not to be forced to resign as Minister for Justice  during the Maurice McCabe scandal. His two predecessors Frances Fitzgerald and Alan Shatter both had to resign on bogus grounds in the midst of media hysteria and even our out-of-control media may have balked at forcing the resignation of a third Minister for Justice! Phil Hogan was not so lucky but both of them had sowed the wind that created the whirlwind!

(A) "Golfgate", Covid and Public Hysteria 

On 13 December 2020 there was a story in Sunday Independent by Eilis O'Hanlon 'Covidiots' Are Being Eaten by a Monster They Created . The immediate story concerns Labour leader Alan Kelly going maskless on public transport and Sky broadcaster Kay Burnley bringing friends back to her house after her birthday party thus breaking Covid regulations. Both escaped rather lightly. She mentions others who did not: . 

Former Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary was left with no choice but to resign after attending a dinner for 80 in Galway organised by the Oireachtas Golf Society. Jerry Buttimer, who was deputy chair of the Seanad, also stood down, as did Ireland's EU Commissioner Phil Hogan.

Phil Hogan's fall was the greatest of all. EU Commission for Trade when he was forced to resign on 20 August 2020 due to media hysteria regarding "Golfgate", he had previously been Minister for the Environment in the Irish Government and  before that Chairman of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party. Curiously enough he achieved his first (Junior) Ministerial post in the Rainbow Coalition formed in December 1994 - after Pat Rabbitte brought down the Fianna Fail government with his bogus claims concerning Fr Brendan Smyth. Phil Hogan's Ministerial career was launched with a bogus media/political scandal targeting the Catholic Church and - in all likelihood - has ended  with an out of control media whipping up hysteria against male authority figures in general! 

Eilis O'Hanlon continues 

A culture of public shaming has been forged in which wrongdoers are put in the stocks for the righteous to pelt with rotten fruit  and she concludes: If Alan Kelly and Kay Burley have fallen foul of a ravenous beast of public censoriousness, it's one they helped to create. Monsters always eat their own children.

BUT this "culture of public shaming" commenced long before the Covid crisis and Phil Hogan himself did a great deal to create it!

(B) 2002: Phil Hogan Libels Nora Wall and Senior Dept of Education Official

In April 2002 he used Dail (Parliamentary) Privilege to libel Nora Wall and a senior official in Department of Education.

This is the text of the Irish Times article dated 25 April 2002 entitled

"TD Cites Retired Official in Child Sex Abuse Allegations"

Details were given in the Dáil last night about a retired senior official in the Department of Education who is alleged to have been involved in a Dublin-based child sex ring. At the time he was supposed to be investigating alleged child sex abuse.

Fine Gael chairman Mr Phil Hogan gave details last night about the official, who retired some years ago and who "has been implicated by a victim in a rent-a-boy sex ring with convicted killer Malcolm McArthur". He referred to "astonishing revelations of a perceived and systematic cover-up of rape, gross indecency and abuse of children from 1978 to 1990". The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals".

Mr Hogan condemned the Department for its failure to take action about the official and said it was not good enough to say it was voluntarily disclosing documents to the Laffoy commission on child abuse. "This man has never come to the attention of gardaí," he said, but "his name keeps coming up with journalists speaking to health board officials". Mr Hogan asked, "Does anyone really care within the Department about what happened to these poor youngsters who were put in the care of the State and then abused?

The [Fianna Fail] Minister for Education, Dr Woods, said: "I care very much, the secretary-general of my Department cares". He added that they would give any information they could, and would co-operate fully. He said, however, that his Department had no information on any cases which compared to newspaper reports.

Mr Hogan said the official was linked to investigations into sexual abuse in residential centres in Kilkenny city, Cappoquin, Co Waterford, and Clonmel. He was named by a male abuse victim who said he had sex with the man. The victim said he was 17 years old and working as a prostitute at the time.

The official was alleged to have been with convicted murderer Malcolm McArthur when the two picked up the rent boy on the Quays in Dublin. Malcolm McArthur has served 20 years for the murder of a nurse in the Phoenix Park and another man, and was later found in the home of the then Attorney-General.

The prostitute recognised the Department official. He had met him while a resident of St Joseph's school in Clonmel, when the man was a Department inspector. Mr Hogan, referring to the story which appeared in the Ireland on Sunday newspaper last week, said the official also investigated sex abuse by convicted paedophiles and "gave one of the worst offenders a clean bill of health".

He said it was alleged that all of the abuse took place at the time the centre was managed by Nora Wall, a former Sister of Mercy nun whose conviction for rape of a 10-year-old child was quashed by the court of criminal appeal in 1999.

The official was guilty of "gross incompetency at the very least and at very worst there was something very dark and dirty behind him hidden from public view", Mr Hogan added.

(C) 2009: Charlie Flanagan Libels Nora Wall, Cistercian Monks AND Dept of Education Official

This is the text of the Irish Times article by Marie O'Halloran dated 9 July 2009 entitled "Fine Gael Deputy seeks New Investigation into Former Nun"

  

A CALL has been made for the reopening of an investigation into former nun Nora Wall, resident manager in the 1980s of St Michael’s Child Care Centre in Cappoquin, Co Waterford.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said she “exposed the children in her care to unacceptable risks by allowing male outsiders to stay overnight at the Cappoquin care home centre in Waterford”. He said: “It has been suggested that there were frequent visits to the Cappoquin home by some clergy from Mount Melleray Abbey. Access to children may have been a key motivation for these visits. We must bear in mind that that very abbey, Mount Melleray, was selected by the notorious paedophile Fr Brendan Smyth as a holiday destination or a haven to escape when he was on the run from the authorities in Northern Ireland. This issue needs to be revisited.”

Mr Flanagan was speaking during the second night of the Dáil debate on the Labour party Private Members’ Institutional Child Abuse Bill which provides that no abuse victim should be denied justice through the redress board. The Bill also removes any record for children incarcerated in reformatory schools by criminal conviction. It was rejected by the Government but the Labour Party did not call a vote last night on the Bill.

[Fianna Fail] Minister of State [for Children] Barry Andrews said the Bill contained a number of good measures and there was some valid criticism of the speed with which the indemnity deal was concluded. 

The Fine Gael spokesman also said “there are issues in relation to the charging and release of Nora Wall that need to be revisited by way of investigation. And it is a matter of some concern that reports about interference with witnesses and attempts to buy their silence have been made,” he added. “I believe this particular aspect needs to be fully investigated because any secret payments made by religious institutions to individuals need to be fully probed and examined.”

Deputy Flanagan also called for the Education Finance Board, which has a budget of €12.7 million, to appear before the Public Accounts Committee. “The board administers a very large budget. Concerns have been brought to my attention in respect of what some considered to be rather ad hoc and casual approach to awarding money.”

Ms Wall had a conviction in 1999 for the rape of a 12-year-old girl in her care declared a miscarriage of justice. Mr Flanagan said the Ryan commission report into child abuse described her management of children in her care as “alarming”, “disastrous” “inappropriate and dangerous”.

He said: “One particularly worrying aspect of the Ryan report refers to an incident where a resident of the home with an intellectual disability was sexually assaulted by a colleague in a hotel where he worked part-time. The parents of the boy went to the gardaí. They confronted the abuser, who admitted the abuse. The boy later told the house parent that he did not want to pursue the matter. It was later noted that the boy had a new radio. He told her that Nora Wall had given him a new radio and a new bicycle. This is quite a sinister revelation that needs to be probed further.”

Mr Flanagan referred to the alleged involvement of a senior departmental official in a Dublin-based child sex ring “at a time he was supposed to have been investigating child abuse. That individual had investigated the home run by Nora Wall and given it a clean bill of health at a time when there were serious problems at the home as now identified in the Ryan report,” Mr Flanagan said.

The Irish Times doesn't mention it, but Charlie Flanagan was referring explicitly to Phil Hogan's previous allegations. According to the Dail Eireann Debates record for 8 July 2009:  My colleague, Deputy Phil Hogan, highlighted in this House in April 2002 the alleged involvement of a senior departmental official in a Dublin-based child sex ring at a time he was supposed to have been investigating child abuse. That individual had investigated the home run by Nora Wall and gave it a clean bill of health at a time when there were serious problems at the home, as identified by the Ryan report.

Did Charlie Flanagan seriously believe that the Gardai had ignored this claim for the previous 7 years? WHY didn't he repeat Hogan's 2002 allegation that "The official "is the golden thread weaving through a number of centres where children were in some cases tortured and forced to have sex with animals" ?

(D) Libelling the Laity (and non-Catholics) to Get the Church!

Matt Russell (and Harry Whelehan and Albert Reynolds)

It is clear that both Phil Hogan and Charlie Flanagan libelled the Department of Education official because he had given a good report to the Sister of Mercy Home that Nora Wall managed. This wasn't the first time that politicians trashed the reputation of innocent laymen in their desire to demonise the Catholic Church. In my article "Sex Scandals Rock the Catholic Church - and the Role of Pat Rabbitte" I describe how in 1994 the then Democratic Left TD, invented a conspiracy between Cardinal Cahal Daly and Catholic Attorney General Harry Whelehan to protect Fr Brendan Smyth. Regarding this bogus scandal, historian Diarmaid Ferriter wrote "Some became angry that when Harry Whelehan was questioned and denied the existence of a Catholic conspiracy within the Attorney-General's office, he felt the need to defend his right to be a practicing Catholic."  However senior civil servant Matt Russell was probably NOT a "practising Catholic" but was forced to resign anyway as a result of the athmosphere of public hysteria created by Rabbitte. (See Appendix 3 to the preceding article: "The Dismissal of Matt Russell")

Pablo McCabe

Moreover Nora Wall's co-accused Pablo (Paul) McCabe was a homeless schizophrenic man, who was obviously penniless but was accused because - prior to 1999 - no woman had been convicted of rape in Ireland. McCabe was branded as the main rapist - with Nora Wall as his helper - in order to make the rape allegations seem more plausible. The two accusers then planned to sue the Sisters of Mercy for  a fortune. Their vile antics were a street level version of the behaviour of Rabbitte, Hogan and Flanagan.

The only detailed account of the tragedy of Pablo McCabe is in an article by Breda O'Brien in the Jesuit Review Studies in Winter 2006: "Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall" 

She begins with a quote from Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman"

I don't say he's a great man... His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.

Kevin Myers
Although the Irish Times account of Charlie Flanagan's attack on Nora Wall in 2009 doesn't mention it, Deputy Flanagan also criticised journalist Kevin Myers - because he had defended her. See my article Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan, George Hook and Nora Wall [1]
Since her conviction was overturned, she has been portrayed as an heroic martyr in many quarters with references to witch hunts and witch trials abounding. Six weeks ago, the columnist Kevin Myers wrote in a national newspaper: "The liberal-left lynch mob that went after poor Nora Wall a decade ago was prepared to destroy her life on the basis of lies."

It is therefore not really surprising that in 2017 Kevin Myers himself was libelled - as an anti-Semite! - by then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar, his Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, a former Deputy PM Joan Burton and by State Broadcaster RTE. It was a series of events unprecedented in the history of this State and probably of any democracy! I write about it here:
Kevin Myers and the Age of de Valera and McQuaid

There was no direct connection between the 2017 libels and Kevin Myers defence of Nora Wall in 1999 but a link certainly exists. There is NO possibility that our "liberal" politicians or RTE would libel "progressive" journalists - like Myers former colleagues in the Irish Times. Kevin Myers was libelled for reasons of ideological hatred - very similar to the motives of racial or religious hatred that inspire extreme Right-wing ideologues!

Ruairi Quinn libels Dept of Education Civil Servants
In 1994 Labour Party TD Ruairi Quinn had been an enthusiastic exponent of the hysterical claims that caused the collapse of the Fianna Fail-Labour Coalition headed by Albert Reynolds. He told Reynolds "We've come for a head. Yours or Harry's [Whelehan], and we are not going to get Harry's." He boasted about his role in his 2005 autobiography "Straight Left" written long after it was clear that neither Reynolds nor Whelehan had done anything wrong. 

In June 2009 Quinn, then Labour Spokesman for Education said in the Dail that "Either officials in the department [of Education] are members of secret societies, such as the Knights of St Columbanus and Opus Dei, and have taken it upon themselves to protect the interests of these clerical orders at this point in time. . . or, alternatively, the [Fianna Fail] minister is politically incompetent and incapable of managing the department"

Ruairi Quinn's slander of Education officials was not as vile as that of Fine Gael's Phil Hogan or Charlie Flanagan but it was made in June 2009 at the same time that the latter was accusing a former official of being a member of a paedophile ring. It also echoes Richard Webster's observation about the events of 1994 precipitated by Deputy Pat Rabbitte when "the Fianna Fail government of Albert Reynolds fell, amidst talk of a dark conspiracy involving politicians, members of Opus Dei, the Knights of Columbus and others." 

Ruairi Quinn was leader of the Labour Party from 1997 to 2002 - prior to voicing his fantasies about Opus Dei in Education - and went on to become Minister for Education himself from 2011 to 2014. Now in retirement, Quinn gave an interview to Kathy Sheridan of the Irish Times which was published on 22 February 2016, entitled "Not retiring quietly, Ruairi Quinn has harsh words for critics"  

....There is no shouting now either, more a deep frustration, disappointment and the sadness of a man first elected nearly 40 years ago, now facing into retirement amid unprecedented levels of abuse and venom. He blames media coverage and intolerance, and a general drop in standards. “People feel they can blackguard each other. ..... [my emphasis]

Irony is definitely not the former Education Minister's  strong point. There is no hint that Quinn's own brand of thuggish rhetoric had anything to do with the "unprecedented levels of abuse and venom" in public discourse!

Charlie Flanagan vs Civil Servants in Department of Justice
I wrote about this issue in a number of previous articles including "Justice Ministers Kevin O'Higgins to Charlie Flanagan: from Decency to Decadence". Two successive Secretary Generals in Department of Justice were forced to resign as on the basis of groundless allegations in relation to the Garda Whistle-blower scandals  - and received no support from Justice Ministers Frances Fitzgerald or Charlie Flanagan who were preoccupied with saving their own their own political skins. Civil servants cannot defend themselves against media assault; they depend on their Minister to do so but our current politicians will not stand for justice when faced with a mob. 

Secretary General Brian Purcell stood aside in July 2014 after then Justice minister Frances Fitzgerald published the Toland Report on the Department, which identified a "closed, secretive and silo-driven culture" supposedly prevalent there. He was the third senior Justice figure forced to resign - after Minister for Justice Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.

Noel Waters served as acting secretary general of Department of Justice after Mr. Purcell's departure. He was appointed on a permanent basis in October 2016. He had planned to retire in February 2018 but instead resigned on 28 November 2017 while issuing a statement that those working in Justice had been "subjected to a barrage of unwarranted criticism". 

Originally Noel Waters had intended to run the Department for a few weeks while a permanent successor was found but this proved impossible! See article by Fiach Kelly in Irish Times on 30 November 2017 The job nobody wants: secretary-general of the Department of Justice 

Justice is seen as one of the big beast departments, alongside the Departments of the Taoiseach, Finance, Public Expenditure, and Foreign Affairs, and should be one of the most attractive. Yet the process that led to Mr Waters’s eventual appointment took two years, and some who were informally approached turned down the opportunity to interview for the job. “We couldn’t get anyone to apply for it,” said one figure involved in the process.

Secretary Generals usually remain in place for 7 years but Noel Waters stepped down in November 2017 a few hours after former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald resigned as Tanaiste (Deputy Prime Minister). He made a statement to colleagues that is probably unprecedented in the history of the civil service:

As he departed, he strongly defended the department - which he said had been “subject to a barrage of unwarranted criticism” - in an email to colleagues. “I want to assure you that, in so far as is humanly possible, this Department has sought at all times to act appropriately, upholding the law and the institutions of the State,” he wrote. “Many of the claims about how the Department has acted that have been made in the media and in the Dáil are not true. The Department makes an important contribution to Irish society, a contribution that more often than not goes unseen and unnoticed,” he added, urging staff not to “not lose sight of your contribution to public service and continue to give your best. Through the years I have worked with truly talented and honourable people and each and every one of you work to make Ireland a safe, fair and inclusive place to live and work.”

The authors of the "barrage of unwarranted criticism" and the "untruthful claims" included Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan. Leo Varadkar said the events of recent days “again exposed major problems within a dysfunctional Department of Justice, including the way important emails were not found and therefore not sent on to the Charleton Tribunal during discovery”. 

Charlie Flanagan: “I want to record my thanks to Deputy Kelly for his PQs which led to the unearthing of an email that had not been sent to the Tribunal.” The minister poured blame on officials at the Department of Justice, saying it has been “a major challenge at every step to obtain complete information in a timely manner, indeed, on a few occasions recently, information has been provided to me, to the Taoiseach, and then to this House, which has proven subsequently to be inaccurate

In contrast Leo Varadkar defended Frances Fitzgerald who had been forced to resign as Tanaiste in the course of the same fake scandal. A good woman is leaving office without a full or fair hearing' - Varadkar addresses Dáil following Fitzgerald's resignation as Tanáiste (Both Leo and Frances had joined in libelling Kevin Myers earlier in 2017!) 

Charlie Flanagan, who libelled Nora Wall and Leo Varadkar who libelled Kevin Myers, are prepared to trash the reputations of their civil servants. When they attack those in Department of Justice they are directly undermining the security of the State. 

(E) Supreme Court Justice Seamus Woulfe Refuses to Resign in "Golfgate"

On 26 August 2020 the BBC did quite a good summary report of Golfgate as it then stood: What is GolfGate and why is it causing Ireland problems?

Last Thursday night, a story broke about a dinner at a hotel in the west of Ireland that has thrown the country's government into turmoil. First reported in the Irish Examiner, it emerged that more than 80 people had attended an Irish parliamentary golf society event in Clifden, County Galway. Included on the guest list were a host of high-profile figures from Irish political life. But the event came just one day after Irish authorities tightened Covid-19 restrictions on gatherings. Gardaí (Irish police) are investigating the event for possible breaches of the regulations. A week later, three politicians, including a government minister and EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan, have resigned their posts. Mr Hogan - who would have been leading the EU's post-Brexit free trade negotiations with the UK - had been facing calls to quit for days before he fell on his sword on Wednesday night. ... James Sweeney, from the Station House Hotel where the event was held, told Irish broadcaster RTÉ he had checked with the Irish Hotels Federation to ensure the event complied with regulations. He said he was told it would be, if the guests were in two separate rooms, with fewer than 50 people in each.

As  a result of this preposterous media-created "scandal" Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary resigned as did Jerry Buttimer, the deputy chairman of the Irish Senate. They  did so without creating a fuss and no doubt their careers won't be permanently affected. The same cannot be said about Phil Hogan, the man who used Dail Privilege to libel Nora Wall and an unnamed senior official in Dept of Education. He strongly resisted his downfall - and rightly so - but it hard to imagine him ever rising again to the dizzy heights he once scaled. In addition Ireland is seen as having undermined its own reputation in the EU. Of course we lost the very important Trade Commissioner post and our replacement Commissioner Mairead McGuinness has been allocated part of the portfolio once held by Valdis Dombrovskis - the man who was promoted to take over from Phil Hogan! 

But fellow-attendee at the golf society dinner, Justice Seamus Woulfe who had only been appointed to the Supreme Court in July 2020, refuses to resign!  The Supreme Court requested its former Chief Justice, Susan Denham, to report on Woulfe's attendance at the dinner.  Denham's report was published on 1 October 2020. She concluded that in the circumstances Woulfe should not have attended the dinner, but she observed that he did not break the law or Covid guidelines. She said that a resignation would be "unjust and disproportionate" - a perfectly sensible observation amidst the hysteria! Ms Justice Denham said she was “of the opinion that it would be open to the Chief Justice [Frank Clarke] to deal with this matter by way of informal resolution.” The Supreme Court initially accepted Denham's Report but media and political hysteria continued and Woulfe criticised same in a private meeting with colleagues. 

Frank Clarke met with Woulfe as part of the  "informal resolution" on 5 November 2020 where he read the contents of a draft letter to Woulfe. Clarke said that all of the judges of the Supreme Court, including the Presidents of the Court of Appeal and the High Court, believed that Woulfe's actions had caused "significant and irreparable" damage to the Supreme Court. The Chief Justice said that in his "personal opinion" Woulfe should resign. He referred to developments since the report was published  doubting Woulfe's understanding of "genuine public concern" and questioning Woulfe's critical remarks of the Taoiseach, the government, and his judicial colleagues. On 9 November, contrary to the wishes of Woulfe, Chief Justice Clarke published the correspondence in which reprimanded Woulfe for his response to the scandal and stated that it was his opinion that Woulfe should resign in order to avoid continuing serious damage to the judiciary

Justice Seamus Woulfe faced down public hysteria generated by the media and endorsed by his own colleagues and refused to resign. Under the Constitution a judge may be removed from office only for "stated misbehaviour or incapacity" and only if a joint resolution is adopted by both houses of the Oireachtas (Parliament). No judge has been removed from office under this procedure since the foundation of the state in 1922. At attempt was made by a few far-left TDs to invoke the impeachment procedure but received no support from the main political parties. The latter would have liked Justice Woulfe to relieve them of responsible by resigning but had no appetite for a fight against a determined opponent! On 17 November 2020, Taoiseach (PM) Michael Martin said the government would not pursue any further action against Woulfe.

(F) Conclusion Sinn Fein and Antifa

Since Ireland's three main political parties are in coalition now, Sinn Fein are the main opposition and are likely to come to power in Ireland's next general election. In my article about the Free Speech Vs Anti-Racism Rallies in December 2019, I wrote about how those of us who opposed Charlie Flanagan's Hate Speech proposals were attacked by Antifa. The attackers were held back by the Gardai (police) and by their own stewards. I have little interest in politics myself but I was told the stewards were from Sinn Fein. But what will happen when Sinn Fein are in power? Will they appoint a new Garda Commissioner and instruct him not to intervene in those circumstances? Will they continue to restrain the street fighting thugs - OR use them as their own enforcers of political orthodoxy? 

One thing is clear. Politicians like Charlie Flanagan and Leo Varadkar (and former ones like Phil Hogan, Alan Shatter (NOTE [1] ) Ruairi Quinn and Pat Rabbitte) have gutted their integrity - much more so than democratic politicians in the Weimar Republic whom historians see as mediocrities rather than morally corrupt. (Supreme Court Judges - including Chief Justice Frank Clarke - have also demonstrated their weakness in the face of popular hysteria.) Weimar "decadence" was more in evidence among the intelligentsia than the political class. It's certainly evident among Irish intellectuals who express no objection to bogus allegations of child rape and murder being directed at Catholic clergy. However our political class for certain - and perhaps our judges - are similarly decadent and equally incapable of standing up to the barbarians at the gates! 

NOTES

[1] See Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews! for former Justice Minister Alan Shatter's contribution to the debate on Separation of Church and State in Ireland!