IRELAND
Irish Central
Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish December 03,2014
What did they do with the rest of their lives, all those absconded fathers? That question has been on my mind on and off in the months since I stood in a small field in Tuam, Co. Galway in Ireland at the start of this summer.
As the world now knows, that small field contains the final remains of 798 forgotten children. They were non-people from the moment of their conception and they have remained so in all the years after their deaths. There isn’t an official marker anywhere to record that they lived and died.
Instead, all the reporting focused on the experiences of the expectant mothers who had been treated like they were radioactive by the church and state. People were appalled to learn about what had happened to them.
But far less thought was given to all the absconded fathers, tens of thousands of them as it turned out, who had abandoned the women they impregnated (and the child that was the result) without any injury to their livelihoods or reputations.
The shame that fanned out to cover the women and their innocent children always ended at their feet, but the men escaped comment and condemnation, every time.
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