Vatican recalls envoy to Ireland amid uproar

Vatican's ambassador to Ireland recalled to Rome in protest over report on church's handling of child abuse by priests.  The Vatican has recalled its ambassador to Ireland following a report on the Catholic Church's handling of child abuse by priests that sparked government outrage.
Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman, said on Monday that Giuseppe Leanza, the archbishop and apostolic nuncio of Ireland, had been ordered to return from Dublin for consultations.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2011/07/2011725111716578608.html 

Baby remains found in mass grave at ex-Irish orphanage

Remains of children ranging from new-born to three years old discovered in sewers of a former Catholic Church-run home.   A mass grave containing the remains of babies has been found in the sewers of a former Catholic orphanage in western Ireland, according to investigators, confirming a local historian's suspicions of the unmarked burial of hundreds of children.
Excavations found "significant quantities of human remains" in an underground structure divided into 20 chambers at the site of the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway, a report from a government-appointed inquiry said on Friday.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/baby-remains-mass-grave-irish-orphanage-170303152505368.html 

Ireland accused of whitewashing childbirth scandal

Hundreds of women who survived a horrific medical procedure and now want compensation feel betrayed by government. One of the ways a government can claim properly to be representing its people is by holding up a magnifying glass to bad things that happened in the past.

In the UK, for example, all sorts of inquiries have been held recently into issues ranging from systematic abuse of children in care to the deaths of football fans in a crush at a ground.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/04/ireland-accused-whitewashing-childbirth-scandal-150411085441926.html 

Blame for N Ireland abuse seen beyond church

As an abuse case begins in Northern Ireland, was the Protestant government as culpable as the Catholic Church?
Sitting opposite me in a hotel room in the town where she was brought up, Katie Walmsley quietly described her childhood. Her parents were splitting up, a priest suggested to her dad that the best place for her would be a children's home for girls. The nuns would keep her safe and well.

"I held on to my daddy's trousers," at the door of the big, imposing building, she said. The nuns pulled her in, and within ten minutes she was sitting with her sister in a bath mixed with jeyes fluid (a toxic industrial detergent people normally use nowadays to get congealed fat out of drains).

http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/europe/2014/02/98396.html 

Mass graves in Ireland: A long history of Church abuse

When human remains were discovered in a septic tank in Tuam, in western Ireland, last month it didn't come as a complete surprise to everyone. The unearthing at the site - a former home for unmarried mothers - was the result of a government commission charged with investigating claims of abuse by religious orders. Excavations uncovered an underground structure where human remains were found.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/03/mass-graves-ireland-long-history-church-abuse-170321060241996.html

Vatican 'shunned' Irish abuse probe

Leaked US diplomatic cables say Vatican officials refused to co-operate with investigation into child abuse by priests.  The Vatican refused to help an Irish investigation into child sex abuse by Catholic priests because the requests were seen as "an affront to Vatican sovereignty," leaked diplomatic cables have shown.
The documents, which were released to the UK's Guardian newspaper by the WikiLeaks website, reveal that the Catholic Church blocked its officials from testifying before an Irish commission because the request was not made through official channels.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2010/12/2010121152615567263.html 

Dead babies and Ireland's dark past

The search for a mass grave leads to inquiry into church-run homes for children born out of wedlock.  Tuam, Ireland - "Everyone knew there was babies buried here, but we thought it was only a small few," says James Mannion, a resident of this western town.
Camera crews and satellite vans assemble in the middle of a housing estate in Tuam. Mannion and other locals have come down to have a look. All are focused on a walled-in, grassy area the size of a basketball court.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/06/mass-baby-grave-ireland-dark-past-2014611122759192401.html 

Irish church faces questions over mass grave

Bones of hundreds of children found in former septic tank thought to be those of orphans who died between 1926 and 1961. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland is facing fresh accusations of child neglect after a researcher found records for 796 young children believed to be buried in a mass grave beside a former orphanage for the children of unwed mothers.
The researcher, Catherine Corless, says her discovery of child death records at the Catholic nun-run home in Tuam, County Galway, suggests that a former septic tank filled with bones is the final resting place for most, if not all, of the children.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/06/irish-catholics-under-fire-over-mass-grave-201463215031168337.html 

Who is running Ireland – the Government or the Church?

The reach and power of the Catholic Church has waned considerably in recent years in Ireland. But there are troubling signs that its undue influence over the country is returning, writes Keith Porteous Wood.

It is difficult to envisage now, but when the UK was formed at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Dublin was regarded as the "Second City of the British Empire". Ireland's role in British political life was no less than that of England, Scotland and Wales from then until the progressive separations from Britain that started during the First World War.

http://www.secularism.org.uk/blog/2017/03/who-is-running-ireland--the-government-or-the-church 

Tuam babies adopted in large numbers to US, says historian who broke the scandal

Fears that dozens of children born to unmarried mothers in institutions across Ireland may have been adopted illegally in the United States were raised this week by the brave historian whose research unveiled the “Tuam babies” scandal in Co Galway.
Catherine Corless has called upon the Irish authorities to examine whether the deaths of infants at institutions such as the Tuam Mother and Baby Home may have been falsified in order to facilitate their adoption by American couples.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/tuam-babies-adopted-in-large-numbers-to-us-says-historian-who-broke-the-scandal 

County chief says all archives from Tuam Mother and Baby home have been made available

Galway Bay fm newsroom – The Acting CEO of Galway County Council has rejected claims that archives relating to the Tuam mother and baby home have not been released.
Kevin Kelly told today’s meeting at County Hall that there is no question that the local authority is not making records available. He stressed efforts are focused on making records available in an appropriate manner and in line with statutory requirements on how personal information is dealt with.

https://galwaybayfm.ie/county-chief-says-archives-tuam-mother-baby-home-made-available/ 

Published on 19 Apr 2013

"The Magdalene Laundries" is a song on the Joni Mitchell 1994 album "Turbulent Indigo".

They were the forgotten women of Ireland, kept under lock and key, forced to clean and sew, and to wash away the sins of their previous life while never being paid a penny. Some stayed months, others years. Some never left. They were the inmates of Ireland's notorious 20th century workhouses, the Magdalene Laundries.

The laundries — a beneficent-sounding word that helped hide the mistreatment that took place inside their walls — were operated by four orders of Catholic nuns in Ireland from 1922 to 1996. Over 10,000 young women, considered a burden by family, school and the state, spent an average of six months to a year locked up in these workhouses doing unpaid, manual work. Some were kept there against their will for years.

Their numbers were made up by unmarried mothers and their daughters, women and girls who had been sexually abused, women with mental or physical disabilities who were unable to live independently, and young girls who had grown up under the care of the church and the state.