Good Catholic Ireland really was a sick and brutal place.

Revelations that the bodies of 800 vulnerable children were dumped into a septic tank at a home run by nuns in Tuam, Co Galway, are stomach-churning.

The remains of innocent youngsters ranging in age from newborns to nine-year-olds were found stacked in the mass unmarked grave.

The full extent of the horror was uncovered by local historian Catherine Corless who was researching the history of the home run by the Bon Secours order of nuns from 1925 until 1961.

The mass grave was found by two boys who were playing in a field in 1995. They found a broken concrete slab and when they lifted it up discovered it was filled to the top with human bones and skulls.

The boys who made this shocking discovery still have nightmares about it.

Ms Corless has tirelessly tracked down records of these forgotten children and found many died from malnutrition and neglect. Others had succombed to measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia.

The infant mortality rate at the home was disturbingly high with two babies dying a week there at one stage. It has been closed for five decades but the earth has now given up the sins of the nuns.

It’s difficult to imagine the terror these poor kids must have felt being prisoners in “The Home”, as it was known by locals.

They were condemned to a life of brutality and neglect, their only “crime” being they were born out of wedlock – the ultimate sin in the eyes  of the Church.

And so to make up for that, they were treated as outcasts and then neglected to such an extent they died in shocking numbers.

Make no mistake about it, this was a deliberate mass killing and nobody in Ireland at the time seemed to care what was happening to these youngsters.

How can 800 children simply die at a home and there be no inquiry? Why were they not entitled to a proper funeral and burial? How could the nuns simply throw them into a septic tank?

It would be nice to reassure ourselves that modern-day Ireland has changed and this could never happen again.

Unfortunately we can’t afford such delusions.

What about the catalogue of children who die every year in the care of the State?

What about Tracey Fay who was found dead in a coal bunker, aged just 18, after spending four years in State care?

The teen’s body lay there for six days before gardai found her. And what chance did Tracey ever have given the “care” she received from the State?

She had been placed in at least 36 different locations including B&Bs, apartments and supported lodgings.

A report into her death found: “She ended up spending large periods of time on the streets, where she was abused and learned not to trust the
system to care for her.”

And horror stories such as Tracey’s are just the tip of the iceberg.

In the 10 years between 2000 and 2010, 196 kids who were known to the State’s child protection services died – with 112 from “non-natural causes”.

And were there outraged members of the public out protesting in the streets asking what was happening to these children? No.

So we have to ask ourselves how much have things really changed for vulnerable kids in Ireland?

Because the truth is we don’t cherish all children equally.

And children who have nobody to speak up for them are all too often ignored.