ITALY
Irish Central
John Spain @irishcentral June 19,2014
In Italy last week on a break, it took me a moment to realize what the hotel owner was talking about when we were chatting after I had checked in.
“The babies — what a sad event,” he said. “But in Italy too we had such things. The church …” he sighed, shaking his head and shrugging at me in understanding and sympathy.
Two things struck me about this. It was an indication of how the appalling story of the remains of hundreds of babies found at the former unmarried mothers and babies home in Tuam in Co. Galway had traveled. We were staying in a small town in northern Italy, not somewhere you expect to be up to speed on news from Ireland.
But the graphic and shocking story had made the Italian newspapers, complete with references to skeletons of babies uncovered “in a septic tank.”
On that basis, it’s probably accurate to say that the story went around the globe. And it is extremely damaging to the image of Ireland, exposing the cruelty and hypocrisy of our recent past for the whole world to see.
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