IRELAND
Irish Mirror
Averil Power
The Government is rightly under pressure now to investigate the circumstances in which these children died
Once again, Ireland is being forced to face up to another element of our dark and shameful past.
The discovery of hundreds of children buried in a septic tank on the site of a former “mother and baby home” in Tuam has served as a horrifying reminder of the abuse Irish women and children were subjected to for decades.
Women who were stigmatised and forced into institutions just because they became pregnant outside of marriage.
Children who were branded “illegitimate” from birth, treated as second-class citizens, and forced to live in conditions that put their health and lives at risk.
As the discovery of the mass grave in Tuam has so starkly reminded us, thousands of children died in these homes.
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