this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

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[–] anarchy79@lemmy.world 9 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

Playing devil's advocate here, could it be that they ran something like a baby euthanasia outfit? like, no contraceptives back then, extreme social stigma surrounding birth out of wedlock, poverty forcing women to give up their newborns, giving them up to the nunnery, which had no resources to deal with feeding caring and raising thousands upon thousands of children, and so either A) simply took it upon themselves to take the logical step and cull some of them, or B) that a high number of babies died of natural causes (neglect, malnutrition, sudden infant death syndrome, disease, whatever) and they simply disposed of them.

I don't know what else could explain this, it's not like we're seriously talking about gangs of murderous baby killing nuns roaming the streets at night and snatching up babies by the hundreds for lust murders, right?

As far as I'm concerned, the only crime here is the institutionalized psychopathy of a religious patriarchal system that refused to take responsibility for giving people a legal and moral avenue to raise children that were brought into life in violation of religious law.

Makes more sense to me at least, I may be fuck way off wrong.

[–] wastelandpilot@lemmy.world 4 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah to me it sounds like the babies died of such causes and weren't intentionally killed. I can imagine that trying to get rid of the bodies in other ways (burial, cremation, dumping elsewhere) would make the many deaths too visible or obvious, and would lead to questioning. But they could be hidden in the sewage.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck no.

You have a bad situation where babies are dying - a lot of babies - you don't hide it. You scream for help.

You dump murder victims

[–] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

That's not how shame based religions work though

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 7 hours ago

mate I was fucking raised roman catholic

[–] hig13@lemmy.world 0 points 8 hours ago

My ¢2, devil's advocate, maybe they were trying to protect the women from emotional trauma, they'd still have some but, maybe an attempt to reduce it. Obviously they could have done different things to do that better, but, maybe it was what they thought was their only option. New Mom's baby dies, instead of telling her that her child is dead, they hide it and tell her that it was adopted or transferred somewhere it would be taken care of or whatever.

It's far fetched, probably unlikely, but hey, devil's advocate, it's a possibility.

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

So you think they "care" so much about these single women and their babies that they would kill their babies and hide their remains in a septic tank?, what's wrong with you. Don't you think the more humane thing would be to promote contraceptives and safe sex and safe abortions in case of accidental pregnancies, and run proper orphanages for the unwanted kids. But of course the actual church is against all of this, cause the idea that religion has anything to do with morality is ridiculously stupid. All religions are cults full of dumb fucks desperate to matter in this meaningless existence.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 3 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Nuns, historically, have not had much if any authority in the church. I think just a couple of years ago they ousted one of the only female pastors in the USA.

[–] BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world -2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

What made you think I'm talking about nuns, I'm talking about those in power, who's orders they follow willingly, they could choose not to and walk away or expose the church higher ups, they choose not to, so don't tell me about nuns being powerless, what they are is soulless

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

If only it were so easy. I've been atheist since middle school but I was raised by a Catholic and an Evangelical, if a person actually believes they suffer for eternity for not appealing to the source of all true good then you're not going to convince them to walk away because of the church's policy on condoms. And even if you did convince a handful, it's not going to dent the Church's bottom line. Real change has to come from the higher ranks.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world -1 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

Article says

DNA analysis found that the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years.

A major inquiry into the mother-and-baby homes found that in total, about 9,000 children died in 18 different mother-and-baby homes, with major causes including respiratory infections and gastroenteritis, otherwise known as the stomach flu.

So basically just Dysentery, yeah. The nuns were no saints (lol) either, though, because they punished the unmaried mothers and put them through hard labor (lol).

This is a terrible time for jokes, I'm so sorry about that. I always make sure to ask for forgiveness (lol).

[–] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 5 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

dude... WTF is with the (lol)s in your post? None of what you said is funny, or even reads remotely like it's even trying to be a joke.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world -2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Right, okay

  1. "they're no saints" is funny because they're part of a religious organization who revere saints

  2. "made to do labor" is funny because in english Labor is a term used to describe the final step of childbirth

  3. "ask for forgiveness" again because religion that reveres asking the lord for forgiveness.

Hope that helps you out, buddy.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

The first rule of comedy is reading the room.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world -4 points 14 hours ago

What, too soon?

[–] altphoto 0 points 18 hours ago
[–] Zenith@lemm.ee -2 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

There’s a behind the bastards episode about it if you’d like to actually educate yourself on why so many of the children died and why they were so callously thrown in the septic and stop sounding so ignorant

[–] dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 11 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Or you can just tell us why, instead of being insulting and vague about it. Hell, you didn't even link which episode has the information you say he is ignorant for not knowing about.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago (3 children)

Lemmy is worse than reddit in terms of unhinged and hateful replies to benign, good-faith but ignorant comments. I don't know how shut-in the users here are but everyone is itching to rip someone's throat out over imagined slights or the desperate, performative need to look better than someone else who doesn't know something.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

No, it's pretty annoying when people don't link shit that should be easy. At least when I'm doing it from mobile, I'll promise to do it when I get home.

Btw, here's the Behind the Bastards episode. Part One: How The Catholic Church Murdered Ireland's Babies | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

[–] Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago

This! Im gonna get down voted for this im sure but I've been using Lemmy instead of reddit for almost a year now or so but the hive mind is almost worse here than it is on reddit! People here seem to not be interested in actual discussion unless you agree 100% with them. It's frustrating, I was hoping Lemmy was gonna be better.

Oh well, at least there's less bigots and my app still works haha

[–] ethicallysliced@lemmy.zip 4 points 17 hours ago

There's probably significant overlap with the Linux warriors here who will respond to people's legitimate questions with variations of "why don't you just not do that and instead do this other thing that doesn't solve your issue" (and also not explain how to do that either).

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I changed my upvote to a little cute "down" arrow when I got to the end of your short but unhinged comment. Way to turn "informative" into "needlessly spiteful for no good reason." You could have ended the comment with a link to the episode even.