IRELAND
Irish Independent

John Downing
March 7 2017

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has described the Tuam Mother and Baby Home – where hundreds of babies’ remains were discovered – as “a chamber of horrors.”

In a very strongly-worded response to questions about the controversy, Mr Kenny said the Tuam revelations did not only concern a mass grave – but “a social and cultural sepulchre.”

Mr Kenny said the revelations were a cause of shock and shame across the country. He said the nuns who ran mother and baby homes did not “kidnap children” – society gave up the children to these nuns, in part to spare them the viciousness of gossip.

“Women of that era had an amazing capacity to self-impregnate,” he said with irony in reference to widespread hypocrisy in Irish society in recent generations.

The Taoiseach was replying to questions from Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who…