The ‘fake News’ about Tuam: Sean Moncrieff Blows a Gasket

By Mick Heaney
Irish Times
March 10, 2017

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How many angels can dance on the head of the pin? Once upon a time this was the pressing question that supposedly preoccupied the finest minds of the church. Of course, things have moved on. When would-be defenders of the faith want to play hair-splitting word games these days the question is about how many infant bodies constitute a mass grave.

As the country reels, again, at revelations about the human remains discovered on the site of Tuam’s mother-and-baby home Sean Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays) hears from a man who seeks to put the whole business in perspective. Bill Donohue, president of the US-based Catholic League, says that the coverage of the Tuam home is, you guessed it, fake news.

The basis for this staggering assertion is the statement that the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation had uncovered “significant” quantities of remains.

Donohue insists that “significant” differs from “huge”, a metric that presumably might permit the use of the term “mass grave” in news reports. This egregious misuse of words outrages him more than the idea of dead children being tossed into the ground with no trace of dignity: “The big story, which is a lie, is that there’s no such thing as a mass grave.”

Donohue, holding forth in the blowhard manner so beloved of American right-wing talkshow hosts, offers little evidence. He dismissively “deals with” Catherine Corless, the local historian who first uncovered the scandal, asking why she says 800 children are interred on the Tuam grounds. Moncrieff replies that she uncovered the death certificates but nobody knew where they were buried. “That’s exactly my point,” Donohue says triumphantly. “She didn’t find a mass grave.”