RTE
October 13, 2011
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1006/blog-6october2011b_primetime.html
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The founding principle of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic was a promise to “cherish all children of the nation equally”. One wonders what the executed leaders of that rebellion would make of the fact that the greatest stains on our nation’s short history have been related to how the State and its instruments have treated the children who have needed its help most.
The church-related child abuse scandals, along with the stories of how children in State care were treated, brought with them a shock, a revulsion and a collective shame that has left an indelible mark on the more recent pages of Irish history. It is no coincidence that these revelations only came to light decades after they took place, such was the level of power within society and the ability to foster secrecy wielded by the perpetrators. If cherishing all children equally was to be a fundamental pillar of the new independent Irish Republic, it was one which crumbled rapidly in the decades that followed the founding of the State. Indeed, if you were a child born outside of wedlock during that period, being cherished or treated as equally as your counterparts born to married parents was as farfetched a notion as one could imagine.
The inner workings of Ireland’s notorious mother and baby homes have been well-documented in the past twenty years or so; these were places where unmarried pregnant women were sent to be kept out of sight, to reduce the shame on their families and to atone for their committed sins. In effect, they were prisoners, sentenced to penal servitude, worked hard (sometimes even up until such a point as they were in labour) and, after they gave birth, very little time was wasted in taking their baby from their arms and adopting them out to married couples, often in America. The fruits of these women’s labours were often a lucrative source of income for the religious orders running the institutions, both figuratively and literally. In many cases, prior to adoption, babies were used as test subjects by pharmaceutical companies who were trialling new vaccines. It can go without saying that these trials were carried out without the consent of the mother, whose incarceration in these homes robbed them of so many basic human rights. In a full-length film on tonight’s Prime Time, Katie Hannon investigates just how wide-spread this practise was; speaking to those on whom these experiments were carried out and examining the level of complicity of Ireland’s authorities. In addition to this, Prime Time discloses shocking new revelations about an outrageous and ghastly practise within the mother and baby homes that has until now remained hidden from the public, and even from those affected by it.
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