IRELAND
Sunday World
PADDY MURRAY
t’s hard to believe. 769 babies dumped in a septic tank.
And do you know why it’s hard to believe? Because it’s not true. It’s made up. It’s fantasy.
Of course, there is going to be an inquiry and there probably should be.
And it should ask not just what role the nuns or others running mother and baby homes had in the dire conditions, but what role the State had and, indeed, what role was played by the families which clearly abandoned these young, pregnant and very often abused girls.
But if there is going to be an inquiry perhaps it should not start with utter gibberish dreamed up by English newspapers.
Right now, there is not a single shred of evidence that 769 babies were ‘dumped’ in a septic tank in Tuam.
Indeed, a respected historian pointed out this week that, whatever about the behaviour of the nuns, it was all but certain they didn’t “dump babies in septic tanks”.
Finbar McCormick, a professor of geography at Queen’s University Belfast, said: “The structure as described is much more likely to be a shaft burial vault, a common method of burial used in the recent past and still used today in many parts of Europe.”
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