top of page
Search

Mother and Baby Homes Bill: Is The Government Trying To Keep Our History In The Dark?


ree

File Photo: Brian Lockier/Adoption Rights Alliance


On 25th October 2020 Michael D Higgins, President of Ireland signed the extremely controversial Mother and Baby Homes Bill into law. For many people, especially those living outside Ireland, the legacies and the history of Mother and Baby Homes may be unknown. This article will touch upon, explain and further analyze the controversy of the Bill and the Mother and Baby Homes in general.


In 2015, a Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation was established to investigate the claims made in 2014 by a local historian- Catherine Corless. In Corless’ works, she gathered information concerning the questionable deaths and burials of over 800 babies and children in the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam.


On 3rd March 2017, the commission revealed that the remains of 796 babies and children were found discarded and hidden in septic tanks and unmarked graves. These atrocities were covered up by religious orders all over the country, and people fear that the Bill introduced will further keep this dark era of Ireland’s history hidden in the shadows.


What are Mother and Baby Homes?


Mother and Baby Homes were essentially institutions that were operated by religious orders and charities and dealt with unwed mothers and their infants between 1922 and 1998.


Unwed single mothers were sent to such homes to give birth rather than at home or in a hospital, in order to keep the status of their “shameful” circumstances under wraps. At the time there was a lot of stigma around having children out of wedlock, which further contributed to the sheer number of women that were sent and often abandoned in these homes. After birth, the children would be separated from their mothers, never to see them again. On many occasions, the children who survived the home’s extreme conditions were either adopted, sent to foster homes or industrial schools (schools that cared for neglected, orphaned, and abandoned children) without the mothers’ consent.


The illegal status of their adoptions and the falsification of birth certificates made it harder for these children to find their biological mothers. These women and their children were robbed of their basic human rights of knowing their own biological families. In foster homes and industrial schools that were also run by the church, abuse was rampant.


Mothers were forced to work in the Homes as a reciprocation for the services they had received when birthing their child. Their work conditions were often inhumane, resulting in punishments to the satisfaction of the nuns who ran the homes if tasks were not completed. The treatment of women and babies in these homes were on many occasions blatant breaches of international human rights laws.

“We gave them up because of our perverse, in fact, morbid relationship with what is called respectability. Indeed, for a while, it seemed as if in Ireland our women had the amazing capacity to self-impregnate. For their trouble, we took their babies and gifted them, sold them, trafficked them, starved them, neglected them or denied them to the point of their disappearance from our hearts, our sight, our country and, in the case of Tuam and possibly other places, from life itself.”

-Enda Kenny’s, Taoiseach of Ireland in 2017 formal apology for the uncovered truths.



The Bill and its future consequences on the survivors of the Mother and Baby Homes:


With 78 votes for and 67 votes against the Mother and Baby Homes Bill, it successfully passed on October 22nd, 2020. The bill will facilitate the transfer of a database of information on the homes and investigations that the Commission has carried out over the past 5 years. This data will be transferred to the child and family agency Tulsa, and the remaining records will be sealed for 30 years under the 2004 Act. Many critics of the bill constitute these actions as meaning that the records would be kept from survivors and their families.


In her analysis of the Mother and Baby Homes legislation, Dr. Maeve O’Rourke says that:


“...many people are extremely upset that they have had no access to their personal data from the Commission to date, or to any of the records it gathered from the State and elsewhere – this legislation does not do much to change that situation.”

The conditions under which the records are being held are questionable to the majority of the public, as they ponder upon the reasons behind their lack of access to information regarding the series of events that went down in these laundries. Survivors and their families fear that with Tulsa coming in possession of their data, it will become even harder for them to find information that notes what happened to them, their mothers and their medical records in these homes.


As a part of the Commission’s investigations, many of the survivors gave their personal accounts of their experiences in such homes. Now, they have been told that their accounts would either be anonymized or completely sealed from the public. This further elevates the mounting distrust of the survivors in the state and Tulsa’s impression that the state is trying to keep the grim details hidden.


Ongoing Actions Against the Bill:


Recently, a protest occurred outside Áras an Uachtaráin (residency of the Irish president), where attendees held signs calling on the government to repeal the seal and stop silencing the voices of women and children.


More than 190,000 people have signed a petition calling for the seal to be lifted.


The account @repealtheseal on Instagram has further been inspiring and motivating people to protest, email, and call those in charge, in order to put pressure on the government to repeal the seal and give a voice to the thousands of lives that suffered at the hands of the Mother and Baby Homes.


Due to the ongoing pandemic, measures like emailing, signing petitions and calling government offices is preferred as it doesn’t necessitate physical presence. There is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding the outcomes of the Bill, and the public is demanding answers. The hope is that through such positive actions, the public’s questions will soon be answered.



Edited by: Karyn Sethi

What you can do to help:


  1. Sign petitions - https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/repeal-the-seal-open-the-archive

  2. Educate yourself - more articles to expand your knowledge on the situation are linked below. Feel free to read and share with others to educate and help increase the traction that the topic is receiving worldwide.

  3. Follow @repealtheseal on Instagram to provide you with more updates on the protests and ongoing fight for clarity.

  4. Email and Call TDs (members of the parliament) to voice your opinions regarding the Bill

Further reads to learn more:


Our Sources:



Comments

bottom of page