State abandoned in 1947 proposed investigation into almost 700 Bessborough deaths Decision came after the Co Cork mother and baby home was temporarily closed
Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 01:00 Donal O Keeffe
Between 1922 and in December 1946, 674 children died at Bessborough mother and baby home. File photograph: Provision
The State in 1947 abandoned a threatened special investigation into the deaths of nearly 700 children at the Bessborough mother and baby home, but warned that it could resume if the institution’s infant-mortality rate did not fall.
The decision to halt the investigation came after the State’s chief medical adviser, Dr James Deeny, had temporarily closed the Cork home and sacked the Sacred Heart nun then in charge.
Stigma may be gone but Irish women still face obstacles in accessing contraception If Government does not owe women access to free contraception perhaps Catholic Church does
Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 00:17 Bláthnaid Corless
Availing of the contraceptive pill in this country will set you back anywhere between €150-€215 each year. Photograph: Cyril Byrne
Ireland’s long-standing dysfunctional relationship with contraception may be aptly summarised by a story my mother told me when I was 18.
When she was about that age, she walked to the Well Woman Centre during her office lunch break to collect her first prescription for the contraceptive pill. How discreet – or so she believed.
Why the State had such a big problem with unmarried mothers Extra-marital sex was a threat to our self-perceived identity of moral superiority
Tue, Jan 19, 2021, 01:00 Alyson Staunton
Names of some of the children who died at the Tuam mother and baby home. The moral ground was ceded to the church and with it came the authority over sexual morality and the family and therefore the shaping of national identity. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Since news broke of the discovery of a mass grave of babies in Tuam, there has been a fear that publication of the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes would mark the third in an unholy trinity of Church malfeasance in its stewardship of institutions for the most vulnerable in society.