Horror orphanages in Ireland: abuse, violence and mass graves

Some 9,000 children have died for decades in Ireland in shelters for single mothers that they were separated from their children, revealed the Irish Commission of Inquiry into Maternal and Child Homes report released in Dublin.

Managed by nuns in collaboration with the Irish State, these houses welcomed adolescents and young people rejected by their families.. Children born there, considered illegitimate, are often separated from their mothers and abandoned for adoption, severing all ties with their biological families.

The commission was created to shed light on the high level of infant mortality recorded in these former institutions between 1922 and 1998.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin has announced that he will apologize on behalf of the Irish state in the matter., after the Irish Mother and Child Homes Commission of Inquiry found “worrying” levels of infant mortality in these institutions, which operated in this country with a long Catholic tradition until 1998.

The report describes a “dark and shameful chapter in the recent history of Ireland”, said the Prime Minister, and emphasizes the country’s “misogynistic culture” for “several decades”. In particular, Martin pointed out “serious and systematic discrimination against women, in particular those who gave birth outside marriage” in this deeply Catholic country.

The investigation was opened in 2015 following the work of historian Catherine Corless, who said that nearly 800 children born in one of these institutions, the Hogar St Mary of the Sisters of Bon Secours in Tuam, in the west of the country, were buried. in a mass grave between 1925 and 1961.

“We had a completely distorted attitude towards sexuality and intimacy”, a “dysfunction” for which “young mothers and their sons and daughters” in these institutions “were forced to pay a terrible price”, he said.

For its part, Irish Minister for Children, Roderic O’Gorman, said: “It is hard to imagine the scale of the tragedy and the pain behind the figure of 9,000 children and babies”. +

The figure of 9,000 deaths represents 15% of the 57,000 children who have passed through these establishments during the 76 years examined by the commission of inquiry.

The investigation was opened in 2015 following the work of historian Catherine Corless, who said that nearly 800 children born in one of these institutions, the Hogar St Mary of the Sisters of Bon Secours in Tuam, in the west of the country, were buried. in a mass grave between 1925 and 1961.

“All of society was an accomplice“, declared the head of government.

HV / DS