The inexpressably saddening story of the 800 babies dumped in a mass grave outside a former Irish Catholic home for unwed mothers continues to develop. Now, an adoption rights advocate says there are several more mass grave sites filled with the bodies of unwanted children, and the Irish government has known about them for years.
Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) Director Susan Lohan tells an Irish news outlet that the Irish government knows of mass graves at three other sites in Bessborough, Castlepollard, and Roscrea. She says that Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald knows “all too well about the issue,” because the ARA and other organizations have been sending her information since Fitzgerald became Minister for Children in 2011.
Lohan and the ARA say the government needs to open a formal inquiry into some 25,000 adoption files that were “dumped” with the Health Service Executive in 2011. It is those adoption files that led historian Catherine Corless to discover the mass grave site. The files are from the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an English/Irish Catholic order that handled tens of thousands of Irish children in the first half of the century. Fitzgerald received a report on the mass graves in July 2013, Lohan says. ARA chairman says the organization gave Fitzgerald an 8,000 word report on the home but she took no action during her tenure as Minister for Children.
Records show that the infant and child mortality rates at the Catholic homes were far higher than mortality rates in Ireland at the time. For example, the Bessborough order had a 57 percent mortality rate in 1943, while Ireland’s child mortality rate that year was 15 percent. Malnutrition is one of the most frequent causes of child deaths at these homes, according to the records.
Fitzgerald’s successor, Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan, calls the mass graves “a shocking reminder of a darker past in Ireland,” and says that government agencies “have been tasked with working together in preparation for the Government’s early consideration and determination of the best course of action.” It is not clear exactly what action the Irish government will take to investigate the matter.
This story continues to develop. Video below.
Edited/Published by: SB
