IRELAND
IrishCentral
796 babies and toddlers died in the Tuam Mother and Baby home between the years of 1925 and 1960, after horrific neglect and lack of basic care. The home was run by the Bon Secours sisters. The name Bon Secours means “Good Help,” the very opposite of what was provided.
Now we are publishing all their names, those tiny humans whose lives were not worth a piece of dirt to those charged with caring for them, or to the men who fathered and abandoned them. By naming we wish to give them a moment of recognition, no longer just a name on a death certificate.
The sentiment towards the out of wedlock kids was best summarized by a medical doctor:
“A great many people are always asking what is the good of keeping these children alive? I quite agree that it would be a great deal kinder to strangle these children at birth than to put them out to nurse.” — Doctor Ella Webb, June 18, 1924, speaking about illegitimate children in care in Ireland at the time
Elaine Byrne, a columnist with the Sunday Business Post in Ireland, discovered the quote above as she researched how up to 800 children were allowed to die by the Bon Secours sisters in Tuam, County Galway.
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