Protests demanding change economic recession and geopolitical tensions not to mention the small matter of a looming election join me Steve Clemons in conversation with leading voices on the bottom line your weekly take on u. S. Politics and society on aljazeera. 6 years ago and on and a secret mass grave for babies was discovered near a home for unmarried pregnant women an institution run by Roman Catholic nuns to find set off a scandal that has raced deeply disturbing questions about the fate of thousands of women and children and the relationship between the Catholic Church and the irish state in a special 2 parts investigation correspondent lawrence lee has been in search of answers. In the corner of an unremarkable childrens playground in the irish town of choom county go away a small patch of land has been walled off. A patch of land with an awful secret. Very. Tiny affair. 6 years ago local historian Catherine Corliss realised that under the grass in and around an old septic tank like the bodies of hundreds of babies and infants. That sewage tank was in the grounds of a mother and baby home run by catholic nuns known as the sisters the women and girls whod fallen pregnant outside of marriage. The survivors and families of those who died were horrified a story came out about a tale of trying to find a septic tank and i knew it me jane i think that was my baby we wanted hardy safe zones from they have d. N. A. Tests us. Under pressure from Widespread International concern and in 2015 the Irish Government set up an official commission of investigation into islands mother and baby. Is the Commission Building if others are selling. To look much really put the survivors it represents all their hopes and their fears and this is patients. The commission was due to produce its final reports in 2018. Cases still not done so. Its an uphill struggle the whole time to keep on top of the government to remind them to get the started to get this going. Nearly 800 babies died in chew. But that is just part of the story. The commission is investigating 14 of the republics mother and baby homes of which 10 were run by catholic orders in these films we investigate evidence that between 4 and 6000 babies and infants died in their care. And on salute babies were dying and did it nothing about its the collecting babies to death. And we reveal how what began as a church and state sponsored moral crusade became a conveyor belts of institutional abuse. Was the price a mother and then their child to deprive my children my son. Of a mother. This is a scandal which has destroyed families cost thousands of lives and raised profound questions about the relationship between the Catholic Church and the irish states. And the british left we got a substitute oppressor which was the church but the church did not do it alone the church was aided and abetted by the state. It all began so differently. In 1916 islands heroic but doomed easter rising was brutally crushed by the british but it left a hugely symbolic legacy a proclamation. Guaranteed universal suffrage and equal rights to all its citizens. A proclamation of irish independent actually quite a beautiful document but the games all irishmen and irishwomen and our quality is a stablished from the very beginning. But for the victims of irelands mother and baby homes that promise of justice and equality was to be cruelly be trained. The people who took control of the mechanics of government. They were arch conservative they were 100 in glove with the Catholic Church. 2 men came to a pizza mine is that relationship Prime Minister of a lair a regarded by many as the father of the modern republic of ireland and archbishop john charles mcquaid. Mcquade worked very closely and you could almost say that devil lera it was the Prime Minister. The position of the Catholic Church as the arbiter of all that was ethical correct and moral in a society. Became beyond challenge. They wished to train this island as a shining light of catholicism. But with no Sex Education allowed in schools and contraception and abortion bans by church and states pregnancies outside marriage were perhaps inevitable. And the solution to that. Was mother and baby homes. The whole point of these institutions was take height and contain any sexual morality from a catholic. Maiden who commissioned crimes against women and children because they werent evidence but the pregnant woman was evidence the l. H. S. From a child was evidence that people had sex out of marriage. From the 1922 new mother and baby homes sprung up across the country. Presented to young women as a solution to their shameful sin they were actually no such thing they are a state and the Catholic Church created the most appalling assaults in the state. And they did so through the architecture of containment. Thats all detector of containment incorporated islands notorious mike glenn laundries well hundreds of so cold folding women were subjected to brutal regimes of forced labor. Peace included the countrys network of bleak Industrial Schools often edges part penal institutions run by orders of nuns and brothers. On the final elements the mother and baby homes in the near 7 decades of their existence more than 30000 women would pass through their doors. So this is a matter of what it was before it was the mother but thats right says her and her costar. A 1st for me is that there would be at least maybe 200. 00 mothers theres a time. I was censored choom in 1937 they for most of her life she kept it secret from her daughter annex. As a child any discussion about the nobles meant mom was in trouble i think would be. Just complete trauma and stress that. I couldnt understand who these nuns were and what theyd done to us. As i got older and she started to talk to me and she started to tell me about the not. Maggie was just 13 when her mother and grandmother died leaving her to 7 younger brothers and sisters. Unable to cope the children were taken away not into cash but to coax. Mom was charged because thats what it said with what charged found destitute and sentenced to 2 and a half years in line to buy castle in galway that was run by the sisters of mercy. Castle was a particularly cruel Industrial School and inspector at the time describe the children there as emaciated code dirty and unhappy and said their diet had been reduced almost to starvation level. Maggies life in learnable i was filled with suffering when she was 17 it got worse. She was raped by the caretaker. And she didnt tell anybody about that rape until she was 70. She was so adamant it was raping me and she was taken she was taken to mother and baby because she was pregnant outside marriage. Maggie was moving to the next stage on the churches conveyor belts of abuse. Of what model what a situation was it was always a woman or thought she had done something to put herself not situation are she found something too late a man on it helped my mother is the dehumanization the take away of human rights totally destroyed. And of corrigans mother Bridget Dolan was also sent there she never told her daughter. My mother died. 2001. 1000 of them i just i was just some family research. They both came as damaged people my mother from the mother and baby arms. And my father from the Industrial Schools. When her father william was just 7 his mother had died of tuberculosis with tragic consequences for william and his siblings the children were sentenced to 10 years in industrial scale as. A crime barely a mother died. William system ali ended up in some brigids Industrial School for girls run by the sisters of mercy in locker a. Former inmates here have reported both physical and sexual abuse. When molly was just 13 she became ill and died. There is the need for an orderly nuns graveyard in front of the school. Grave is unknown and unmarked. Grown up i didnt know anything about us i know nothing about my parents life. But the familys biggest secrets as anna discovered was that her mother had twice become pregnant before meeting her father and was sent to have babies and do pennance ensure. They had to bury the secret its a very distant im still trying to process how she. Islands architecture of containment targeted women it identified as sinful and the poor it soars undeserving. But it stands charged with targeting another group for its ethnicity. Im a member of the chav and p. S. A. And my clutch of the boogie man the cruelty man as. He was a child. It took children 82 children away from their families their parents. One day in 1951 when Katherine Kofi obriens mother was a small Child Cruelty man officially a Child Protection officer arrived at her familys camp and seized her and her 9 siblings these are children. They were 1 sentenced in various Industrial Schools. Like so many travelling families before and since the children were scattered in institutions across the country catherines aunt died at 17 in colonia. We still dont know how she died. 2 of her uncles ended their days in sindh finians Mental Hospital by the 950 s. Ireland had the highest proportion of people in Mental Hospitals in the world more even than the u. S. S. R. On the stall in my grandmother cara. Poverty. Never seen any of them are but 2 for children again she didnt even know or one doctor was buried. Meanwhile catherines traumatized mother married briefly and had catherine. But with a moment in the notes of mental institutions catherine was sent to a succession of Industrial Schools where she experienced constant racist abuse and violence often at the hands of nuns i was torn in a bass. And i was scrubbed within an inch of my life scott the nascar for me was the tom used its a very recessed negative tom. Catherine did eventually escape Industrial School moved into a bit suits and fell in love. But the happiness was not so lost before i got pregnant. And i found out that he had a fling with him while. I met a girl. Wind social work arse. And she said to me there is a place that car you or she said. Catherine was being sent to best spring mother and baby home run by the sisters of the sacred hearts of jesus and mary. She was going back to an institution. The mary. And the mother of baby was there on interconnect of a watch our family was. It was almost like you had a terrible in your back. At least 900 babies and infants are known to have died in best the last in 1994. But the burial places of only 64 recorded. The sisters whose convent still overlooks the grounds claim to have no idea where they buried the other 800. 00 or more. Is just more tonight and i am told i i dont believe for one second they dont know where the burial grounds are. The same order of nuns ran another home Sean Ross Abbey in ross creates a prairie. They sold the buildings in 2018. It is actually the 1st time that any film co have been allowed inside to reserve collins was born here. Were going to talk about those huge this is your 1st impression when you walk in its like a stately. It is appealed and i was. But as you go down along your feet a secret. When youre in youre in. 9 years ago the sisters supplied the government with death registers which showed the 269 babies died in sean rolls sabby between 19341967. But an examination of the towns official death records reveals a rather different figure. In reality over a 1000 babies and infants died in the home. Each mother came in was never called by their own name they always had the house name. Is better than 989 i was taught aside my name was jane decided to take my culture for me and my family with me they took my money their identity was taken away their human rights was taken away their hair was taken away their clothes was taken away prisoners got better treatment. The nuns imposed a regime of relentless back breaking work in the fields and indorse makea my mother remembers being heavily pregnant should members the length of the halls to scrub that was just a never ending job every one of them downstairs as we say out of sight out of mind. Now as far as we can gather just was to deliver it. The reason being down here is so. There would be no pain relief allowed no pain relief available the pain of childbirth would be part of your saying and i tell men to be. Tough or not in your direction right whispering in your ear when youre given a horrendous spirit or breach very bad it was or churchill minutes of pleasure your child is gone and the gentle. In causal poland where over 220 babies are known to have died survivors speak of the screaming room. An outhouse where mothers in labor were taken when the cries of agony got too loud. So the baby would be born then she would be allowed a few tears rest with the baby but then it was back to work and from that point shed only be allowed to see the baby to breastfeed the baby so it was just to me not a crude bringing in the cows for making. Mothers we usually compelled to stay in the home for a year or more working unpaid to feed their child and in penance for their sins a woman has a baby out of wedlock with smart zen can you imagine a martin stan a mortar on the water in the us the Church Committee sent. Here out parable of the larger downtown at a fire. And when their time of penance was up they were car stamps and made to leave their children behind. Julia devaney lived with the nuns in choosing from 1926 when she was just 8 until the home closed in 1961. And when she left she recalls the suffering of the young mothers. Only. When the. People. Or. More of. When my mother actually left it was in the middle of the biggest snowstorm we ever had an art and. I have this picture of a walking of the rather sad case im going to leave a baby behind. And it doesnt know if her mother was ever given news of joan the son she left behind. But we do have a description of him its from a government inspector who visited shoom shortly afterwards a miserable emaciated child with gracious appetite and no control over bodily functions probably mentally defective. Less than 2 months later he was dead. John was born nominet healthy. They starved him to death theres no question about it i may see a shit youre starving for a should stop it being fat. The government inspector also noted that out of 66. 00 babies born or admitted to the home in the previous 6 months 21 nearly a 3rd of them died. When Annette Mkhize mother maggie gave birth to her daughter Mary Margaret in june it seems she tried to resist the nuns rules anybody who was. T. K. Would disagree with. Their child they were the problem so she was. Baccarat Industrial School. There in early june 1943 just 6 months after shed given birth a nun approached maggie with some news about the daughter shed left behind in june. She remembers sol clearly the day packing i washing the nunc a told to the child if you lost it is dad. And let it go the same day and there would be no funeral there would be no. Now more sighting of the baby and the mother it must have just felt like the baby just disappeared. There are no photographs of annette sister Mary Margaret and his brother john to remember their short lives by. There is not even a record of where they were buried. But all the evidence points to that septic tank by the childrens playground in choom. Yet despite the litany of death and neglect the inspector had found on his visit to cheer him he concluded. The care given to infants in the home is good the sisters are careful and attentive diets are excellent. The nuns who got away with it. And across islands with the support of the state and the church all forces they would continue to get away with it for decades. In part 2 of our investigation into the mother and baby home scandal we look at the face of the babies those who survived and those who did not the babies were just another kobayashi but all we were to church we reveal the shocking treatments of unmarked child graves in one home. And we find dramatic new evidence about the possible location of missing babies in best. Very dense an area. Where they are regularly they much. For an individual. And we ask why 5 years after the official commission of investigation was established no one has been called to account they just dont want to believe that it happened on the scale it happened because any fellow. Polish irish statement does this isnt going away. We asked the religious orders named in this film to respond to the issues weve raised both declined to be interviewed the sisters of the sacred hearts said they were cooperating fully with the commission of investigation in a brief statement they added we provided the service for these women we did not create society which contributed to such exclusion and pain the sisters of consequence said only that they continued to cooperate with the commission and could not comment ahead of its final report. In the conclusion of the 2 part series people in paris vesta gates allegations that Irish Catholic nuns facilitated the traffic babies the church realized that babies in iowa could be sold to america a scouting quite a nice and reveals shocking new evidence of how and where religious orders disposed of those who died frankly torn in the system like this one church and state are committed to keep the church from coming helps islands mother in baby scandal on aljazeera. This is aljazeera. 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