What
is the compact between the living and the dead? Do we owe the dead a
small plot of earth? A gravestone or an urn? A whispered prayer, a spray
of flowers, or some other means by which we signal to the great silence
that we remember?
These
are among the many questions raised by a continuing scandal in Ireland
that is the focus of a New York Times special report called “The Lost Children of Tuam.”
Though well-known in that country, the disturbing case, involving the
historic mistreatment of unwed Irish mothers and their children, is less
familiar beyond Irish shores.